Parity conditions and the efficiency of the Australian 90- and 180-day forward markets

Covered Interest Parity (CIP) holds in the 90 and 180 forward market for the AUD/USD spot exchange rate provided fully modified least absolute deviation model (FM-LAD) procedures are applied to daily data for the period from December 2, 1985 to December 29, 2000. CIP fails if corrected ordinary least squares (OLS) and fully modified OLS (FM-OLS) procedures are applied. However, UIP fails in both markets on early data: December 2, 1985 to December 31, 1991, but holds in the 90-day market in a later subperiod: January 2, 1992 to December 29, 2000 FM. UIP is modified (M) to accommodate a potential risk premium. The MUIP model does not provide strong evidence suggesting the presence of a time-varying risk premium (TRP).