The Relationship between Exchange Rates and Interest Rate Differentials: A Wavelet Approach

This paper uses wavelet analysis to investigate the relationship between the spot exchange rate and the interest rate differential for seven pairs of countries, with a small country, Sweden, included in each of the cases. The key empirical results show that there tends to be a negative relationship between the spot exchange rate (domestic-currency price of foreign currency) and the nominal interest rate differential (approximately the domestic interest rate minus the foreign interest rate) at the shortest time scales, while a positive relationship is shown at the longest time scales. This indicates that among models of exchange rate determination using the asset approach, the sticky-price models are supported in the short-run while in the long-run the flexible-price models appear to better explain the sign of the relationship.