TY - JOUR AU - Bekaert,Geert TI - The Time Variation of Risk and Return in Foreign Exchange Markets: A General Equilibrium Perspective JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 4818 PY - 1996 Y2 - October 1996 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w4818 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w4818.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Geert Bekaert Graduate School of Business Columbia University 3022 Broadway, 411 Uris Hall New York, NY 10027 Tel: 212/854-9156 Fax: 212/662-8474 E-Mail: gb241@columbia.edu AB - This paper investigates the statistical properties of high frequency nominal exchange rates and forward premiums in the context of a dynamic two-country general equilibrium model. Primary focus is on the persistence, variability, leptokurtosis and conditional heteroskedasticity of exchange rates and on the behavior of foreign exchange risk premiums. The model combines temporal dependencies in preferences with a transaction cost technology that generates a role for money. Agents in the economy make decisions on a weekly frequency and face shocks which display time-varying uncertainty. Simulations reveal that the model accounts for the statistical properties of exchange rate data much more accurately than previous structural models. ER -