Uncovered Interest Rate Parity, Carry Trade, and Country Equity Return Differentials

Abstract

This paper applies a mixed effect model to investigate the relationship between international equity returns and forward discount sorted currency returns from three base currencies (i. e., US dollar, euro, and pound sterling). Empirical results using the portfolio approach show that high-interest rate currencies co-move positively while low-interest rate currencies co-move negatively, suggesting that foreign equity excess returns can help to explain investment in currency markets, providing a partial resolution to the uncovered interest parity conundrum. Furthermore, we show that global equity market returns, volatility, and liquidity correlate well with currency returns.