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In this paper, we develop a daily-frequency measure of economic and policy uncertainty for Chile, employing information obtained from Twitter accounts using web scraping techniques and following closely the methodology proposed by Baker et al. (2016). Our proposed measure, called DEPUC, aims to capture the level of general disagreement -a proxy for economic and policy uncertainty-in topics such as the economy, economic policies, uncertainty about particular events, and Chile's conjuncture situation. The index, available from 2012 onwards, shows significant hikes that coincide with several local and international episodes that provoked extraordinary levels of uncertainty in Chile, especially after the events around the civil protests in mid-October 2019 and the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in mid-March 2020. An empirical exercise reveals that the proposed measure is a significant determinant of the nominal exchange rate dynamics, especially when this variable's magnitude is high and a week after the shock occurs. On the contrary, when the exchange rate is low, the impact of uncertainty on this variable is quantitatively smaller for any forecasting horizon. These features, and others discussed in the paper, highlight the usefulness of the proposed metric as an additional indicator that policymakers can incorporate into their monitoring toolkit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the past few years, monetary policy communication has become a hot topic in as far as it seems to have become a very relevant way for central banks to guide markets, beyond actual monetary policy decisions. This paper investigates this issue empirically for the case of Chile. More specifically, using data from 2005 to 2014 and a Component GARCH model, we assess whether changes in the communication of the Central Bank of Chile generates in particular a permanent or temporary change in the volatility of interest rates, after controlling for changes in monetary policy instruments. Our results show that the volatility in interest rate futures in Chile’s swap markets increases following the Central Bank’s communication. However, the impact tends to be temporary instead of permanent and only statistically significant in the pre-crisis period. All in all, our results indicate a reduced relevance of Central Bank's communication for short term swap markets which may reflect that market participants have learned to anticipate changes in monetary policy communication, especially after the global financial crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to review the main factors of the yield curve in Chilean market during the period 2005-2013. Two different approaches are used to compute the main three factors denoted as the level, slope and curvature of the yield curve. Then, the impact of economic surprises and announcements are analyzed. Our results indicate that local surprises and announcements (both local and external) have similar effects on the estimated factors under both approaches, whereas is evidenced an asymmetric impact in the case of external surprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we provide evidence of exchange rate predictability for a selected emerging market economy (EME) at intermediate horizons, arguably, the most relevant for policy purposes. This is important because the existing literature on exchange rate predictability has mainly focused on developed economies, leaving relatively unexplored the question for EME. By making use of a unique quarterly database of external assets and liabilities for Chile, we show that a measure of external imbalances is able to predict the real exchange rate over horizons of up to two years. Robust out-of-sample evidence on predictability reflects the fact that the external balance's importance to the exchange rate has risen in recent years and/or the precision of parameter estimates rises as sample size grows larger . When we break down our measure for external imbalances into its three component ratios (exports to imports, exports to assets, and assets to liabilities), we find that predictability is mainly driven by the last two. Our results suggest that researchers and policymakers should pay attention to external imbalances to understand the future dynamics of the real exchange rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is substantial evidence suggesting that central banks in open economies react to exchange rate fluctuations, in addition to expected inflation and output. In some developing countries this reaction is comparatively larger and it is nonlinear . In an estimated structural macromodel for Chile, this paper assesses the advantages and potential costs of adopting such a reaction function. We conclude that, in the face of most of the external shocks, a policy rule that responds to exchange rate misalignments smooths inflation and output variability, while marginally increasing interest rate fluctuations. On the other hand, for some domestic innovations such a rule performs poorly. When all the shocks are considered at the same time, this rule generates important welfare gains. Finally, when the volatility of external shocks rises, increasing the response to exchange rate misalignments brings welfare improvements. In fact, a more aggressive response to the exchange rate offsets the impact that greater external volatility has on output and inflation, at the cost of inducing higher interest rate fluctuations. In this way, one can interpret the nonlinear reaction to the exchange rate as an optimal response to a more volatile external environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]