Covered Interest Arbitrage: Then versus Now

Abstract
We introduce a new weekly database of spot and forward US–UK exchange rates and interest rates to examine the integration of forward exchange markets during the classical Gold Standard period (1880–1914). Using threshold autoregressions (TARs), we estimate the transaction cost band of covered interest differentials (CIDs) and compare our results with studies of more recent periods. We find that CIDs for the US–UK rate were generally largest during the classical Gold Standard. We argue that slower information and communications technology during the Gold Standard period led to fewer short‐term financial flows, higher transaction costs and larger CIDs.