Financial decision makers often consider the information in currency option valuations when making assessments about future exchange rates. The purpose of this paper is to systematically assess the quality of option based volatility, interval and density forecasts. We use a unique dataset...

This study calibrates the term structure of risk premia before and during the 2007/2008 financial crisis using a new calibration approach based on credit default swaps. The risk premium term structure was flat before the crisis and downward sloping during the crisis. The instantaneous risk...

This paper presents a set of probability density functions for Euribor outturns in three months’ time, estimated from the prices of options on Euribor futures. It is the first official and freely available dataset to span the complete history of Euribor futures options, thus comprising over...

This paper considers the role of foreign investors in developed-country equity markets. It presents a quantitative model of trading that is built around two new assumptions: (i) both the foreign and domestic investor populations contain investors of different sophistication, and (ii) investor...

The financial crisis has highlighted the need for models that can identify counterparty risk exposures and shock transmission processes at the systemic level. We use the euro area financial accounts (flow of funds) data to construct a sector-level network of bilateral balance sheet exposures and...

In this paper, we assess whether and to what extent financial activity in the oil futures markets has contributed to destabilize oil prices in recent years. We define a destabilizing financial shock as a shift in oil prices that is not related to current and expected fundamentals, and thereby...

Inflation expectations constitute a subject of particular contemporary interest to central banks, especially those pursuing a monetary policy based on a strategy of direct inflation targeting. Macroeconomic theory indicates that the transmission of monetary policy impulses and their impact on...

In certain market environments, a large investor may benefit from building up a futures position first and trading subsequently in the spot market (Kumar and Seppi, 1992). The present paper identifies a variation of this type of manipulation that might occur in money markets with an interest...

It is commonly thought that an open economy can accommodate output shocks through either exchange rate or real sector adjustments. We formalise this notion by incorporating labour market rigidities into an “escape clause” model of currency crises. We show that the absence of structural...

Does the general public know what central banks do? Is this kind of knowledge relevant? Using a survey of Dutch households, we investigate these questions for the case of the European Central Bank (ECB). Our findings suggest that knowledge on the ECB’s objectives is far from perfect. Both a...