Towards a new monetary theory of exchange rate determination

Staff working papers set out research in progress by our staff, with the aims of encouraging comments and debate
Published on 30 August 2019

Staff Working Paper No. 817

By Ambrogio Cesa-Bianchi, Michael Kumhof, Andrej Sokol and Gregory Thwaites

We study exchange rate determination in a 2-country model where domestic banks create each economy’s supply of domestic and foreign currency. The model combines the UIP-based and monetary theories of exchange rate determination, but the latter with a focus on private rather than public money creation. The model features an endogenous monetary spread or excess return in the UIP condition. This spread experiences sizeable changes when shocks affect the relative supplies (of bank loans) or demands (for bank deposits) of the two currencies. Under such shocks, monetary effects dominate traditional UIP effects in the determination of exchange rates and allocations, and this becomes stronger as domestic and foreign currencies become more imperfect substitutes. With these shocks, the model successfully addresses the UIP puzzle, and it is also consistent with the Meese-Rogoff and PPP puzzles.

PDFTowards a new monetary theory of exchange rate determination