Abstract:
This paper investigates the relative role of price discovery between two long-term swap contracts that exchange U.S. dollars for Japanese yen - the cross-currency basis swap and the foreign exchange (FX) swap - using structural state space models. Our main findings are that: (i) the currency swap market plays a much more dominant role in price discovery than the FX swap market; and (ii) FX swap prices tend to under react to changes in the efficient price, while cross-currency swap prices react almost entirely to them.
The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the BIS or its member central banks.