Price Discovery for Competing Currency Numeraires

For many countries, information in FX markets about the fundamentals of their economies is reduced to two relevant and competing channels, namely, their currency's exchange rate with either the euro or the US dollar. In light of this, this paper presents an analysis which can help establishing which one of these two currency numeraires drives the price discovery process and what market microstructure factors determine their informational contribution. Using EBS benchmark exchange rates, we find that the USD dollar is an informationally dominant currency when it comes to the Japanese economy but that such prominence is clearly contested when the two currencies are matched with the Swiss franc. Although price discovery appears to positively correlate with the bid-ask spread, two-stage regressions present no evidence of a causal impact of liquidity. Furthermore, we provide evidence suggesting that managed exchange rates may affect the price discovery of their targets.

Keywords : Central bank intervention; Currency numeraire; Exchange rates; Liquidity; Price discovery; Target zones