Title: Essays in Exchange Rates Forecasting
PhD Supervisor: Cédric Tille
Expected completion date: 2025
During the last forty years, applied research has struggled to overturn the evidence that economic models are unable to predict ex post exchange rates better than a simple random walk. Although significant progress has been made over the last four decades, the consensus view on the issue still remains that nominal exchange rates dynamics are by and large unforecastable ex post. While different approaches seem to have given good results in some specific and circumscribed instances, at the moment no model able to outperform the random walk at every time horizon and on every sample. The aim of the thesis is to fill in this gap in the literature, by estimating a continuous system of nonlinear equations describing the behaviour of a small open economy. The forecasting performance of the model is gauged against the standard random walk without drift. Several forecast evaluation tests are proposed and discussed.
Currently a PhD candidate in international macroeconomics, Francesco graduated from LSE in 2020. His Master’s thesis focussed on the estimation of asymmetric and state-dependent impulse response functions to monetary and fiscal policy shocks in the United States. Subsequently, Francesco gained experience in applied macroeconomic consultancy by working for a private research centre in Rome and for the International Labour Organisation in Geneva. At present, his research is directed at the use of macroeconometric models for forecasting nominal exchange rates. Francesco is also passionate about monetary policy implementation and international liquidity issues.
Open-economy macroeconomics
International banking and finance
Monetary policy implementation
Macroeconometric modelling and forecasting