Do Exchange Rates Respond to Day-to-Day Changes in Monetary Policy Expectations When No Monetary Policy Changes Occur?

Abstract

This paper addresses whether exchange rates respond to changes in expectations of future U.S. monetary policy when no actual monetary policy changes occur. We employ data on Federal funds futures contracts for extracting a measure of policy expectations, control for the surprise element of macroeconomic news and policy developments, and analyze more than 12 years of daily exchange rate data. Our findings show that continuous day-to-day changes in expectations of future monetary policy are associated in a highly significant and systematic way with day-to-day changes in exchange rates even when no actual monetary policy changes occur. This suggests that monetary policy matters for daily exchange rate determination in more ways than merely through infrequent, actual policy changes.