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This paper investigated exchange rate and stock price volatility connectedness and spillover in Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) during pandemic-induced crises. We first extracted volatility using the Generalized Auto-Regressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH) model. Then volatility connectedness and spillover were investigated by using (Diebold and Yilmaz, International Journal of Forecasting, 28(1), 57–66, 2012) method. We find that exchange rate volatility and stock return volatilities are connected during pandemic-induced crises. The study also finds volatilities spillover among countries in the sample. Russia has strong volatility connectedness with India in these financial markets. The direction of volatility spillover is from Russia to India. Similarly, Brazil has strong volatility connectedness with South Africa and the direction volatility spillover is from Brazil to South Africa. Finally, China has a weak volatility connection with the remaining BRICS countries. Thus, the volatility transfer in these financial markets and across BRICS countries has economic implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to uncover the channels through which real exchange rate undervaluation influences the performance of the South African economy.Design/methodology/approach The author decomposes the South African economy into three sectors: agriculture, industry, and services. Specifying a model for each sector, the author employs the ordinary least squares (with Newey-West and robust standard errors) and generalized method of moments estimation techniques. The annual time series data cover the period 1962-2014.Findings The author finds that real exchange rate undervaluation exerted a positive influence on agriculture and industry, and a negative impact on services.Research limitations/implications The results have practical policy implications, which are discussed in the paper.Originality/value Although the growth effect of real exchange rate undervaluation has been well established in the literature, the channels through which this occurs has received limited attention. Prior to this study, no study has considered the impact of real exchange rate undervaluation on the economy through the various sectors in the South African context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the asymmetry of the loss function for private forecasters in exchange rate forecasts of the South African rand. It tests rationality under the possibility of an asymmetric loss function. The results indicate less evidence of asymmetry for a horizon of 1 month but considerable evidence of asymmetry for a horizon of 3 months. However, the shapes of the distributions formed by estimated asymmetry parameters of sub-samples for each forecaster are symmetric, regardless of the forecast horizons, which implies that these forecasters do not herd or antiherd. In fact, the results of our empirical herding test show that forecasters neither herd nor antiherd, which is in sharp contrast to recent findings on antiherding for foreign exchange rates in emerging market economies. Our findings provide consistent evidence for a recent suggestion that antiherding might result in the rejection of rationality, even under asymmetric loss functions. Our findings also suggest that central bank transparency might be associated with herding behaviours. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The surprising volatility of floating exchange rates have puzzled macroeconomists and challenged policy makers since the seventies. This is no less true in South Arica where the Rand's volatility is a longstanding policy and business challenge. This paper extends the literature on nominal and institutional factors associated with currency volatility. Rose's description of inflation as ' Bretton Woods in reverse' is the departure point and is read with Berganza and Broto's recent demonstration in a time series study that inflation targeting emerging market economies have experience higher exchange rate volatility. Meanwhile Bleaney and Tian have shown the cross-sectional connection between the level of inflation and exchange rate volatility. We build on Bleaney and Tian's cross-sectional approach to investigate the association between the level at which inflation targeting countries target inflation and exchange rate volatility over the long run. Crucially, we control for the average level of inflation and distinguish between inflation targeting countries that target high and low levels of inflation, in order to investigate whether the choice of the level of the inflation target (an institutional feature) is associated with greater exchange rate volatility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between stock prices and exchange rates has continued to generate interest from both the academia and financial industry players for many years. This study conducts an empirical investigation into the relationship between stock prices and exchange rates for the two largest economies in Sub-Saharan Africa – South Africa and Nigeria. Our methodology accounts for structural breaks in the data and the long-run relationship between stock and foreign exchange markets. The results of multivariate causality tests with structural breaks showed that causality runs from exchange rates to domestic stock prices in Nigeria (flow channel) while in South Africa, no causality exists between domestic stock prices and exchange rates. The results also reveal that there is causality from the London stock market to both countries’ stock markets, thus showing that international stock markets are driving both the Nigerian and South African stock markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper conducts an empirical analysis of the relationship between oil prices and exchange rates in South Africa. We model the volatility and jumps in exchange rate returns by using the GARCH autoregressive conditional jump intensity model of Chan and Maheu which models the effects of extreme news events (jumps) in returns. The empirical results show that oil price increases lead to a depreciation of the South African rand relative to the US dollar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exchange controls were part of a complex system of maintaining some financial stability during apartheid, particularly as the apartheid economic system began to implode, and the macroeconomy deteriorated. The centrepiece of the system was a complex system of multiple exchange rates, with residents and non-resident transactions taking place under different currency regimes, creating at different periods a ‘blocked rand’, a ‘securities rand’, a ‘commercial rand’ and a ‘financial rand’. Exchange controls appear to have assisted the apartheid regime to maintain macroeconomic stability despite other poor policy choices. However, measured in terms of monetary independence and exchange-rate stability, even this was a mixed success. Much like apartheid itself, short-term economic benefits came with severe long-term political, social and economic distortions. Twenty years later, some of the distortions remain, and, indeed, some of the controls. This highlights the need for ongoing reforms to make the post-apartheid South African economy less distorted and more competitive, and to continue to develop a modernized system for managing external risks. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article investigates the random walk behaviour of CIVETS (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa) foreign exchange rates against the US dollar using weekly data from February 2007 to April 2012. Using variance ratio tests, the results suggest that the nominal exchange rates of Vietnamese dong and Egyptian pounds violate the random walk hypothesis and do not follow a martingale process. However, the Colombian peso, Indonesian rupiah, Turkish lira and South African rand exchange rate markets are considered weak-form efficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies drivers of high-frequency (daily) dynamics of the South African rand vis-à-vis the dollar from January 2001 to July 2007. We find strong nonlinear effects of commodity prices, perceived country and emerging market risk premium and changes in the dollar-euro exchange rate on changes in daily returns of the rand-dollar exchange rate. We also identify a one-sided nonlinear mean reversion to the long-term monetary equilibrium. In addition we establish very short-lived effects on the exchange rate of selected macroeconomic surprises and central bank communication aimed at talking up the rand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of currency over- or undervaluation is often asked and implies the existence of an equilibrium exchange rate (EER). The aim of this research was to determine the long-term EER of the South African rand using the behavioural equilibrium exchange rate (BEER) methodology. This paper used a panel of data from South Africa's main trading partners to estimate the relationship between the EER and its fundamental determinants using dynamic ordinary least squares (OLS) and fully modified OLS. The average coefficients obtained describe the long-term behaviour of the individual countries' real exchange rates. Substituting the observed fundamental time series into the estimated equation derives the EER for each country and over- and undervaluation can be determined. The results indicated that the fundamental value of the exchange rate was driven by economic growth, the openness of the economy, its foreign reserves, the real gold price and capital expenditure. The exchange rate also fluctuated considerably around its equilibrium level but there is not long sustained periods of over- and undervaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper utilises “a class test for fractional integration” associated with the seminal contribution of Hinich and Chong to appraise the possibility that Southern African Development Community (SADC) real exchange rates can be treated as long memory processes. The justification for considering fractional integration is that the general failure to reject the unit-root hypothesis in real exchange rates is caused by the restrictiveness of standard unit-root tests regarding admissible low-frequency dynamic behaviour. The paper presents evidence that, except for South Africa, none of the SADC real exchange rates are fractionally integrated. However, the results are found to be sensitive to the size of the sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study tests the theory that currency crises are associated with sudden large changes in the structure of foreign exchange market volatility. Due to increases in market uncertainty, crisis periods exhibit abnormally high levels of volatility. By studying short-term changes in volatility dynamics, it is possible to identify the start and end dates of crisis periods with a high degree of precision. We use the iterative cumulative sum of squares algorithm to detect multiple shifts in the volatility of rand returns between January 1994 and March 2009. Dummy variables controlling for the detected shifts in variance are incorporated in a generalised autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity modelling framework. The analysis indicates that previously identified crisis periods in the rand coincide with significant structural changes in market volatility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis of exchange rates and employment has received scant attention in development economics. This is surprising, since there appears to be a number of well-defined transmission channels through which exchange rates impact on employment. In South Africa this is particularly important given the rand's higher volatility relative to other emerging economies. The main focus of this paper is to give an overview of the transmission channels through which exchange rates affect employment and to discuss the standard methodological approach to conceptualising the impact of exchange rates on employment. Given the sector-specific impact of exchange rates which are conditioned by industry characteristics, such as the degree of external orientation, there will always be winners and losers in the face of a currency shock. This means the full impact of exchange rates on employment can only be dealt with in an economy-wide framework. Results from a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model are presented to demonstrate that even in a country with unreliable employment data such as South Africa, one can still analyse exchange rate and employment issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an econometric investigation of the determinants of the real value of the South African rand over the period 1984-2007. The results show a relatively good fit. As always with exchange rate equations, there is substantial weight on the lagged exchange rate, which can be attributed to a momentum component. Nevertheless, economic fundamentals are significant and important. This is especially true of an index of the real prices of South African mineral commodities, which even drives out real income as a significant determinant. An implication is that the 2003-2006 real appreciation of the rand can be attributed to the Dutch Disease. In other respects, the rand behaves like currencies of industrialised countries with well-developed financial markets. In particular, high South African interest rates raise international demand for the rand and lead to real appreciation, controlling also for a forward-looking measure of expected inflation and a measure of default risk or country risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses two versions of the purchasing power parity puzzle. It presents the results of nonlinearity and nonstationarity tests in respect of the real exchange rates of the rand. It is found that the rand real exchange rate behaviour tends to be nonlinear and stationary in a majority of cases in the sample. This suggests that for the majority of the currencies in the sample, the real exchange rates of the rand are mean-reverting, implying that the purchasing power parity relation holds in a nonlinear manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper combines the estimation of the Monetary Conditions Index (MCI) with the theoretic modelling of optimal monetary policy in South Africa. The idea that monetary policy is not only interested in optimal monetary conditions but also in external stability, provides the basis for the analysis. The paper introduces the concept of the MCI and estimates the relative influence of interest rates and exchange rates on the output gap. The estimated weights are 1.9:1. This estimation results is used to specify operating target rules for South African monetary policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]