The Impact of RMB Internationalization and International Situations on China’s Foreign Exchange Market: Dynamic Linkages between USD/CNY and SDR/CNY

Abstract

With the RMB becoming the fifth international payment currency and its inclusion in the SDR currency basket, coupled with the opening of China’s capital market, RMB-related exchange rates have attracted increasing attention because of China’s RMB internationalization strategy. Using the DCC-GARCH model, we investigate how domestic (China) and international (USA, EU, UK, and Japan) policies and situations, including RMB internationalization, U.S. QE, European Debt Crisis, Brexit, and Abenomics, influence co-movement of the USD/CNY and SDR/CNY exchange rates from 2010 to 2017. We analyze the co-movement and provide explicit explanations for distinct areas (unrelated, long-term negative, and abruptly positive co-movement areas). Further, we find that RMB-related exchange rates remain largely influenced by domestic policies, while because of China’s opening-up policies they are also influenced by the international situations. Both US and EU policies exert a remarkable influence, but the effects of UK and Japan policies are decreasing.