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Begin New Search Topic International Reserves Political Geography Global Focus

1. Leaning-against-the-wind intervention and the “carry-trade” view of the cost of reserves

Author:
Eduardo Levy-Yeyati and Juan Francisco Gómez
Publication Date:
10-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
For a sample of emerging economies, we estimate the quasi-fiscal costs of sterilized foreign exchange interventions as the P&L of an inverse carry trade. We show that these costs can be substantial when intervention has a neo-mercantilist motive (preserving an undervalued currency) or a stabilization motive (appreciating the exchange rate as a nominal anchor) but are rather small when interventions follow a countercyclical, leaning-against-the-wind (LAW) pattern to contain exchange rate volatility. We document that under LAW, central banks outperform a constant size carry trade, as they additionally benefit from buying against cyclical deviations, and that the cost of reserves under the carry-trade view is generally lower than the one obtained from the credit-risk view (which equals the marginal cost to the country´s sovereign spread).
Topic:
Foreign Exchange, Economy, International Reserves, Trade, and Exchange Rates
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. The Cost of Holding Foreign Exchange Reserves

Author:
Eduardo Levy Yeyati and Eduardo Gómez
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
Recent studies that have emphasized the costs of accumulating reserves for self-insurance purposes have overlooked two potentially important side-effects. First, the impact of the resulting lower spreads on the service costs of the stock of sovereign debt, which could substantially reduce the marginal cost of holding reserves. Second, when reserve accumulation reflects countercyclical LAW central bank interventions, the actual cost of reserves should be measured as the sum of valuation effects due to exchange rate changes and the local-to-foreign currency exchange rate differential (the inverse of a carry trade profit and loss total return flow), which yields a cost that is typically smaller than the one arising from traditional estimates based on the sovereign credit risk spreads. We document those effects empirically to illustrate that the cost of holding reserves may have been considerably smaller than usually assumed in both the academic literature and the policy debate.
Topic:
Financial Crisis, Exchange Rate Policy, International Reserves, and Capital Flows
Political Geography:
Global Focus and United States of America

3. A Proposal for a New Regional Financial Arrangement: The Reserve Liquidity Line

Author:
Young-Joon Park
Publication Date:
12-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP)
Abstract:
This paper examines the limitations of the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization (CMIM) as a regional financial safety net in East Asia, and proposes a new regional financial arrangement. To overcome the drawbacks of the CMIM, which has never been activated so far, a new regional financial arrangement suggests that ASEAN+3 members establish a regional reserve system based on a supranational regional reserve asset. The new regional financial arrangement, so-called “Reserve Liquidity Line” (RLL), guarantees a degree of automaticity in liquidity facility, based on upfront funding instead of pledge funding. As a backdrop of the regional reserve system, some market movements have been manifested to reduce excessive U.S. dollar dependency in East Asia and to enhance the use of local currencies. Establishing the RLL mechanism could find a way of making up for the weak points of the CMIM and responding to the regional needs for effective regional financial arrangements. The proposed operational mechanism of RLL comprises (i) institution building of ASEAN+3 Reserves System (ARS) to manage the Regional Reserves Asset (RRA), (ii) an Operations Account and a Substitution Account, and (iii) a sort of basket exchange rate for RRA valuation.
Topic:
Finance, Economy, Multilateralism, International Reserves, and Liquidity
Political Geography:
Global Focus