FX Risk Premia from the Bond Markets Mi Wu∗ This Draft: November 20, 2017 Abstract This paper proposes a two-country term structure model of joint behavior of bond markets and foreign exchange (FX) markets. With information extracted from local bond markets of G10 currency countries, the model is able to repro- duce the uncovered interest parity (UIP) puzzle as observed in the FX market. Bond market risk factors explain up to 50% of the variations in exchange rate movements at a one-year horizon and over 90% for some countries at a five-year horizon. For currency excess returns, the model-implied time-varying risk pre- mia deliver higher explanatory power than the interest rate differentials. These findings quantify how closely the FX market and the bond markets are inte- grated. The empirical findings also reveal heterogeneity between investment- and funding-currency countries in terms of the risk exposure to the transitory shocks of the bond markets. ∗PhD Candidate, 4-339 Simon Business School, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA 14620. Email:
[email protected]; Tel: +1 415-279-6090. I am grateful to my advisor and committee members, Prof. Robert Ready, Prof. Ron Kaniel, and Prof. Robert Novy-Marx, for their invaluable advice. I also thank Prof. Olga Itenberg, Prof. John Long, Prof. Yan Bai, Prof. Andreas Stathopoulos, Prof. Jerry Warner, Dr. Leon Cui and all seminar participants at Simon Business School and University of Sydney Business School for helpful discussions and comments. All remaining errors are mine. 1 1 Introduction In theory, currency trades over any length horizon can be conducted through the bond markets.