A Model of U.S. Monetary Policy and the Global Financial Cycle
Professor Rohan Kekre
Assistant Professor of Finance
Haas School of Business
University of California, Berkeley
We propose a general equilibrium model in which U.S. monetary policy affects global risk premia by revaluing the wealth of currency-mismatched arbitrageurs. Assuming their portfolios are mean-variance efficient, arbitrageur must be short the dollar. A U.S. tightening thus erodes arbitrageurs’ net worth and raises the global price of risk. We discipline this mechanism to rationalize the effects of U.S. monetary policy on international asset prices, and we quantify the associated macroeconomic spillovers and role of policy responses abroad. In a potential future with higher dollar interest rates, arbitrageurs’ dollar funding and U.S. monetary policy spillovers are dampened.
