THE ROLE OF CURRENCY HEDGING ON FIRM PERFORMANCE: A PANEL DATA EVIDENCE IN INDONESIA

This paper analyzes the role of currency hedging on non-financial firm’s performance. Most firms on the sample have anticipated the currency mismatch risk by balancing the ratio of foreign debt to their asset fenominated in foreign currency. Using panel estimation, we find that there is no evidence of currency hedging activities to affect capital and performance of firms. The result underlines the low intensity of currency hedging activities due to lack of incentives, which is inline with the low derivative transaction within the underdeveloped foreign currency market. This finding may raise a concern since currently the development of foreign liabilities for non-financial firmsin Indonesia is increasing in significant level, as well as the increase risk of domestic currency depreciation. For these reasons, Bank Indonesia should take proactive policies to deepen foreign currency market as well as derivative market by providing a more comprehensive and market friendly hedging instruments to banks and non-financial firms, while keep promoting the benefit of currency hedging. Keywords: Hedging, derivative market, foreign liability. JEL Classification: F31, G3