An Empirical Investigation into the Determinants of Foreign Exchange Hedging and its Exposures for UK Firms.

This paper empirically examines foreign exchange (FX) hedging by UK firms to provide evidence on the determinants of a firm’s decision to hedge FX. This study provides a unique insight into the topic by employing a comparative study on the determinants of FX hedging, transaction exposure hedging and translation exposure hedging. Through a series of univariate and multivariate tests, firm size, foreign exposure and leverage are found to be the most powerful explanatory variables in a firm’s decision to hedge FX and its exposures. Moreover, an investigation into the definition of FX hedgers indicates that a more inclusive definition provides more significant, yet similar results