Time-Varying Exchange Rate Exposure: Evidence from Emerging Markets

This paper examines exchange rate exposure of country level stock returns in three emerging market economies: Korea, Taiwan and Thailand. The analysis is carried out at country level using stock indexes and trade-weighted exchange rates. Time-varying exchange rate exposure coefficients are obtained by estimating a Multivariate GARCH-M model with explicit focus on the non-orthogonality between exchange rate changes and market returns. Findings of the paper indicate that, although they are likely to vary over time, exchange rate exposure coefficients for Korea and Taiwan follow mean-reverting long-memory processes. However, the exposure coefficient for Thailand is found to be characterized by a non-stationary unit root process. The presence of mean-reverting exchange rate exposure coefficients has important implications for investment and hedging strategies.