Читать книгу Foreign Exchange: The Complete Deal - James McDowell. Sharpe - Страница 24

Intervention can be distinguished by whether it is sterilised or unsterilised; i.e., intervention that respectively does not or does change the monetary base (or money supply as an approximation). When a monetary authority buys (sells) foreign exchange its own monetary base increases (decreases) by the amount of the purchase (sale). If the authority wishes to reverse the effect on the domestic monetary base – sterilise – they would buy (sell) domestic bonds. Fully sterilised intervention does not directly affect prices or interest rates and so does not influence the exchange rate through these variables as ordinary monetary policy does.

Unsterilised intervention is effectively another way of conducting monetary policy; in other words it will affect the level of the exchange rate in proportion to the change in the relative supplies of domestic and foreign money. A currency swap can be used to sterilise an intervention. A swap is a transaction where a foreign currency is bought in the spot market and simultaneously sold in the forward market. A swap will have little affect on the exchange rate. In this process the spot leg of the swap is transacted in the opposite direction to the spot market intervention, leaving the forward leg intact.