Exchange Rates Dynamics with Long-Run Risk and Recursive Preferences

Standard macro models cannot explain why real exchange rates are volatile anddisconnected from macro aggregates. Recent research argues that models with persistentgrowth rate shocks and recursive preferences can solve that puzzle. I show that this resultis highly sensitive to the structure of financial markets. When just a bond is tradedinternationally, then long-run risk generates insufficient exchange rate volatility. A longrunrisk model with recursive-preferences can generate realistic exchange rate volatility,if all agents efficiently share their consumption risk by trading in complete financialmarkets; however, this entails massive international wealth transfers, and excessiveswings in net foreign asset positions. By contrast, a long-run risk, recursive-preferencesmodel in which only a fraction of households trades in complete markets, while theremaining households lead hand-to-mouth lives, can generate realistic exchange rate andexternal balance volatility.