Evidence on the CIP
As a result, it seems much more likely that long-term covered interest arbitrage, if it is enforced at all, is enforced by ‘one-way’ arbitrage transactions on the part of either international bond issuers or investors. Institutional investors such as pension funds and insurance companies, however, are often restricted from transacting in derivative securities, making it impossible for them to synthesize higher local currency returns from a combination of foreign currency bonds and a suitable package of foreign currency forwards. Even in situations in which regulations do not prohibit them from doing so, ‘home bias’ might prevent them from actively investing in foreign currency bonds and/or they might fear the consequences of having to explain to their investors their use of ‘risky’ foreign currency derivatives. Given the likely constraints that international bond investors face, previous studies of long-term CIP have instead assumed that international bond issuers serve as the ‘one-way arbitrageurs,’ who enforce the CIP in equilibrium. Following the CIP in the short-term currency markets, researchers have typically sought to determine the degree to which apparent departures from the CIP for longer term bond yields are confined to neutral bands established by bid–ask transaction costs and/or the degree to which they are larger (or smaller) in magnitude than comparable deviations measured for short-term currency rates. Unlike the body of empirical research on short-term CIP, however, the long-term results are much more mixed.