Exchange rates and fundamentals: a non-linear relationship?

We test whether the relationship between changes in the nominal exchange rate and changes in its underlying fundamentals has non‐linear features. In order to do so, we extend the Markov‐switching model as proposed by McConnell and Perez Quiros (2000) and Dewachter (2001) and test it using a sample of low‐ and high‐inflation countries. The empirical analysis shows that for the high‐inflation countries the relationship between news in the fundamentals and the exchange rate changes is stable and significant. This is not the case, however, for the low‐inflation countries, where frequent regime switches occur. We develop a non‐linear model based on the existence of transactions costs that could explain our empirical findings. We find that this simple non‐linear model is capable of replicating the empirical evidence uncovered in this paper. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.