This paper studies the high frequency reaction of the DEM/USD exchange rate to publicly announced macroeconomic information emanating from Germany and the U.S. By using data sampled at a five-minute frequency, we are able to identify significant impacts of most announcements on the exchange rate change in the 15 minutes post-announcement, although the significance of these effects decreases rapidly as the interval over which the post-announcement change in exchange rates is increased. The direction of the exchange rate response conforms, in general, with a reaction function interpretation whereby reactions to macroeconomic news are driven by the likely operations of monetary authorities in domestic money markets. Further, we detect influences of German monetary policy decisions on the reaction of the exchange rate, and also differences between U.S. and German announcements in the exchange rate reaction time pattern.

This paper focuses on an old issue--the linkage between money announcements and the exchange rate. It shows that the magnitude of the time-varying response of the spot exchange rate to an unanticipated money announcement is mainly driven by agents' expectations of the Federal Reserve's time-varying response to the deviation of the actual money supply from a prespecified target. The inference is that the magnitude of the exchange rate's response to economic announcements depends on market participants' expectations about the announcements and the Fed's probable monetary policy response.

This paper articulates a model of the small, open economy in which the stock market, rather than the bond market, determines domestic aggregate demand. It resembles in many respects the widely adopted dynamic Mundell-Fleming approach, but can, in some circumstances, exhibit output and asset price dynamics that differ in economically illuminating ways from that more standard framework. In particular, if the stock market effects are important enough, then a monetary expansion can result in real exchange rate appreciation, rather than depreciation. Anticipated fiscal expansion can, if the favorable effects on future productivity lead to strong enough stock market effects, lead to an output expansion, rather than a contraction as in, for example, Burgstaller (1983), Blanchard (1984) and Branson, Fraga and Johnson (1985). Furthermore, if the delay between announcement and implementation of the fiscal expansion is long enough, an anticipated fiscal expansion can lead to exchange rate depreciation, rather than appreciation.