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Journal of Financial Economics Vol. 42 No. 1 1996

Exchange rate variability and the riskiness of U.S. multinational firms: Evidence from the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system

Eli Bartov1; Gordon M. Bodnar2; Aditya Kaul3

1 New York University · 2 University of Pennsylvania · 3 University of Rochester

open access

Abstract

We examine the relation between exchange rate variability and stock return volatility for U.S. multinational firms and decompose this relation into components of systematic and diversifiable risk. Focusing on two five-year periods around the 1973 switch from fixed to floating exchange rates, we find a significant increase in volatility of monthly stock returns corresponding to the period of increased exchange rate variability, even relative to the increase in stock return volatility for three control samples. In conjunction with this increase in total volatility there is also an increase in market risk (beta) for multinational firms.

DOI
10.1016/0304-405x(95)00873-d
Volume
42
Issue
1
Pages
105-132
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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