Political Announcements and Exchange Rate Expectations

Abstract

Exchange rate fluctuations in a small open economy are closely related to political trust. Various political announcements exert significant influence on the exchange rate by affecting the expectations of economic actors. Due to information technology and social networks, these statements spread quicker and gain more publicity than ever before. In this paper, we present a dynamic model with adaptive expectations to describe the short and long-run effects of political announcements on the exchange rate. We found that relevant announcements cause significant fluctuations in the short-run but do not affect the long-term equilibrium exchange rate. Our results are also supported by case-studies from Hungary.