NBER Publications by Rasmus Fatum

Japanese official intervention in the foreign exchange market is of by far the largest magnitude in the world, despite little or no evidence that it is effective in moving exchange rates. This paper investigates the effectiveness of intervention using recently published Japanese official daily data and an event study methodology. Focusing on daily Japanese and US official intervention operations, we identify separate intervention episodes' and analyze the subsequent effect on the exchange rate. Using the non-parametric sign test and matched-sample test, we find strong evidence that sterilized intervention systemically affects the exchange rate in the short-run (less than one month). This result holds even when intervention is not associated with (simultaneous) interest rate changes, whethe...