Three Essays in International Finance

Diplôme Thèse Three Essays in International Finance eng 2026-06-29 2026-06-29 author Bräuer Leonie Andrea 947714 Recherche et enseignement GSEM (RESEM) director Hau Harald 762636 Recherche et enseignement GSEM (RESEM) 10.13097/archive-ouverte/unige:194752 urn:nbn:ch:unige-1947523 GSEM 170 This dissertation examines foreign currency (FX) hedging and its implications for exchange rates, fund behavior, and investor expectations. The first chapter shows how time-varying hedging demand by non-US investors affects spot exchange rates. A model of spot and forward markets predicts that more price-sensitive hedging demand increases exchange rate volatility and generates a strong negative correlation between spot returns and changes in net hedging volumes. The second chapter uses fund-level FX derivatives data to study how European investment funds manage currency risk. Most funds rely on partial or unitary hedging, and derivative use does not significantly reduce average return volatility, although optimal strategies could do so at low cost. The third chapter develops a method to infer exchange rate expectations from allocations between hedged and unhedged ETFs. These portfolio-implied expectations outperform survey- and model-based measures in predicting future exchange rates, while investor disagreement explains a share of exchange rate volatility. Dewey 650 116 Geneva Finance Research Institute S4 false 2b5e7239-0123-46df-8569-a9e2565d972d Thesis Public PhD_Thesis_Braeuer_V3.pdf 3445003 application/pdf 119fe9d0d4f48da05a675ca5170f946fb04a126f90ee6c9add418987b01fcaf1 052bcbc7-bbce-4a79-9f45-5d25bf5e70ae Imprimatur Public Imprimatur_BRAEUER_Leonie.pdf 116946 application/pdf 252e08ae273e9c8551a0e6b86b2d3c7d1058aa34324126bbb3b974c86efdb4e1 openAccess Faculté d'économie et de management / Geneva Finance Research Institute

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Three Essays in International Finance				2026	6	5

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Bräuer, Leonie

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