This paper presents a brief survey of the empirical literature on survey-based exchange rate expectations. The literature in general supports the presence of a non-zero risk premium and rejects the hypothesis of rational expectations. The crucial result is that, while short-run expectations tend to move away from some long-run “normal” values, long-run expectations tend to regress toward them. If this nature of short-run expectations increases the volatility of exchange rate movements, there may be a basis for some official measure to minimize short-run exchange rate movements.

The flotation of exchange rates in the early 1970s saw a significant increase in the importance of foreign exchange markets and in the interest shown in them. Apart from the consequent institutional changes, this period also witnessed a revolution in macroeconomic analysis and finance theory based on the concept of rational expectations. This book provides an integrated approach to recent developments in the understanding of foreign exchange markets. It begins by charting the institutional background and looks at the recent history of movements in some of the major exchange rates. The theoretical sections focus on the economic and finance theory of the asset market approach, the macroeconomic models developed from this approach, and on interest rate parity theory. The empirical chapters draw on the authors' own research from a high quality set of exchange rate and interest rate data. The statistical properties of exchange rates are analysed; the relationship between spot and forward rates is examined; and the modelling and impact of new information on the forward and spot relationship is considered. The final chapter is devoted to the estimation and testing of exchange rate models.

Posing a major challenge to economic orthodoxy, Imperfect Knowledge Economics asserts that exact models of purposeful human behavior are beyond the reach of economic analysis. Roman Frydman and Michael Goldberg argue that the longstanding empirical failures of conventional economic models stem from their futile efforts to make exact predictions about the consequences of rational, self-interested behavior. Such predictions, based on mechanistic models of human behavior, disregard the importance of individual creativity and unforeseeable sociopolitical change. Scientific though these explanations may appear, they usually fail to predict how markets behave. And, the authors contend, recent behavioral models of the market are no less mechanistic than their conventional counterparts: they aim to generate exact predictions of "irrational" human behavior. Frydman and Goldberg offer a long-overdue response to the shortcomings of conventional economic models. Drawing attention to the inherent limits of economists' knowledge, they introduce a new approach to economic analysis: Imperfect Knowledge Economics (IKE). IKE rejects exact quantitative predictions of individual decisions and market outcomes in favor of mathematical models that generate only qualitative predictions of economic change. Using the foreign exchange market as a testing ground for IKE, this book sheds new light on exchange-rate and risk-premium movements, which have confounded conventional models for decades. Offering a fresh way to think about markets and representing a potential turning point in economics, Imperfect Knowledge Economics will be essential reading for economists, policymakers, and professional investors.

This paper examines the dynamics of the foreign exchange market. The first half addresses a number of key questions regarding the forecasts of future exchange rates made by market participants, by means of updated estimates using survey data. Here we follow most of the theoretical and empirical literature in acting as if all market participants share the same expectation. The second half then addresses the possibility of heterogeneous expectations, particularly the distinction between “chartists” and “fundamentalists,” and the implications for trading in the foreign exchange market and for the formation of speculative bubbles.

The studies in this book deal with the determination of foreign exchange rates and the characteristics of the foreign exchange market. Analysis is made of flexible exchange rates through an approach developed by the authors, called the ‘asset-market approach’. Theory is combined with practical application in a clear concise way that will be understood by readers with a basic understanding of economics.

This book collects together the basic documents of an approach to the theory and policy of the balance of payments developed in the 1970s. The approach marked a return to the historical traditions of international monetary theory after some thirty years of departure from them – a departure occasioned by the international collapse of the 1930s, the Keynesian Revolution and a long period of war and post-war reconstruction in which the international monetary system was fragmented by exchange controls, currency inconvertibility and controls over international trade and capital movements.

This volume grew out of a National Bureau of Economic Research conference on exchange rates held in Bellagio, Italy, in 1982. In it, the world's most respected international monetary economists discuss three significant new views on the economics of exchange rates - Rudiger Dornbusch's overshooting model, Jacob Frenkel's and Michael Mussa's asset market variants, and Pentti Kouri's current account/portfolio approach. Their papers test these views with evidence from empirical studies and analyze a number of exchange rate policies in use today, including those of the European Monetary System.