Forward and spot exchange rates between major currencies imply large standard deviations of both predictable returns from currency speculation and of the equilibrium price measure (the intertemporal marginal rate of substitution). Representative agent theory with time-additive preferences cannot account for either of these properties. The authors show that the theory does considerably better along these dimensions when the representative agent's preferences exhibit habit persistence but that the theory fails to reproduce some of the other properties of the data–in particular, the strong autocorrelation of forward premiums.

One of the most puzzling features of currency prices is the forward premium anomaly : the tendency for high interest rate currencies to appreciate. We characterize the anomaly in the context of affine models of the term structure of interest rates. In affine models, the anomaly requires either that state variables have asymmetric effects on state prices in different currencies or that nominal interest rates take on negative values with positive probability. We find the quantitative properties of either alternative to have important shortcomings.

Forward and spot exchange rates between major currencies imply large standard deviations of both predictable returns from currency speculation and of the equilibrium price measure (the intertemporal marginal rate of substitution). Representative agent theory with time-additive preferences cannot account for either of these properties. We show that the theory does considerably better along these dimensions when the representative agent's preferences exhibit habit persistence, but that the theory fails to reproduce some of the other properties of the data—in particular, the strong autocorrelation of forward premiums.

Forward and spot exchange rates between major currencies imply large standard deviations of both predictable returns from currency speculation and of the equilibrium price measure (the intertemporal marginal rate of substitution). Representative agent theory with time‐additive preferences cannot account for either of these properties. We show that the theory does considerably better along these dimensions when the representative agent's preferences exhibit habit persistence, but that the theory fails to reproduce some of the other properties of the data—in particular, the strong autocorrelation of forward premiums.