We document that a trading strategy that is short the U.S. dollar and long other currencies exhibits significantly larger excess returns on days with scheduled Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) announcements. We show that these excess returns (i) are higher for currencies with higher interest rate differentials vis-a-vis the United ` States, (ii) increase with uncertainty about monetary policy, and (iii) increase further when the Federal Reserve adopts a policy of monetary easing. We interpret these excess returns as compensation for monetary policy uncertainty within a parsimonious model of constrained financiers who intermediate global demand for currencies.
Exchange Rates and Monetary Policy Uncertainty(with Philippe Mueller and Andrea Vedolin)Journal of Finance, 72(3): 1213–1252, 2017.