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The case for stabilizing China's exchange rate against the dollar is strong. Before 2005 when the yuan/dollar rate was credibly fixed, it helped anchor China's domestic price level. But gradual RMB appreciation from July 2005 to July 2008 created a "one-way-bet" that disordered China's financial markets in two respects: (i) no private capital outflows to finance China's huge trade surplus leading to an undue build up of official exchange reserves and erosion of monetary control, and (ii) a breakdown of the forward exchange market in 2007–2008 so that exporters could no longer get trade credit — probably worsening the severe slump in Chinese exports. But after July 2008, the credit crunch induced an unexpected unwinding of the dollar carry trade leading to a sharp appreciation in the dollar's effective exchange rate. The People's Bank of China (PBC) then stopped RMB appreciation against the dollar. China's forward exchange market was restored and monetary control regained. Now the PBC can better support the fiscal stimulus by promoting a parallel expansion of bank credit. But, since March 2009, the fall in the dollar (with the RMB tied to it) again threatens to undermine the yuan/dollar rate and China's monetary stability.

It is demonstrated that carry trade can be made more profitable by taking into account the drift factor in the random walk behavior of the underlying exchange rate if it is significant. By using four currency combinations we find the drift factor to be significant at horizons longer than one month and that if it is taken into account, the outcome of carry trade improves in terms of risk-adjusted return. The results and conclusions are consistent whether the exercise is conducted within-sample or out of-sample.

The discussion on exchange rate policy is dominated by the so-called "impossible trinity". In this paper, a strategy of managed floating is developed that allows one to transform the "impossible trinity" into a "possible trinity". If a central bank targets an exchange rate path which is determined by uncovered interest parity (UIP), it can at the same time set its policy rate autonomously. As a UIP path removes the incentives for carry-trade, it is also compatible with capital mobility. The approach can be used unilaterally to prevent carry trade as a central bank can always prevent an appreciation of its currency. But it can also be applied bilaterally or multilaterally. Successful examples are the European Monetary System and the exchange rate policy of Slovenia before its EMU membership.

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.

We examine the determinants of issuance of yen-denominated international bonds over the period from 1990 through 2010. This period was marked by low Japanese interest rates that led some investors to pursue “carry trades”, which consisted of funding investments in higher interest rate currencies with low interest rate, yen-denominated obligations. In principle, bond issuers that had flexibility in their funding currency could also have conducted a carry-trade strategy by funding in yen during this low interest rate period. We examine the characteristics of firms who appear to have adopted this strategy using a data set containing nearly 80,000 international bond issues. Our results suggest that there was a movement towards issuing in yen in the international bond markets starting in 2003, but this appears to have ended with the outbreak of the global financial crisis in 2007. Furthermore, the breakdown of carry-trade conditions in 2007 corresponds to a resurgence in the ability of economic fundamentals, such as the volume of trade with Japan, to explain the decision to issue international bonds denominated in yen.