Meta-analysis finds negligible true effects of macroeconomic news in foreign exchange markets, suggesting reported impacts are largely driven by publication bias and study methods.
We perform a complex quantitative synthesis of the effects of macroeconomic news announcements on exchange rates based on 985 estimates from 31 primary studies. We advance testing for publication selection by combining standard visual inspection of funnel plot and employment of the FAT‐PET‐MRA asymmetry tests with the use of modern alternative testing techniques. Our analysis finds evidence consistent with publication selection, which persists after including the moderator variables. Once it is accounted for, the mean effect beyond bias is close to zero. The sources of heterogeneity in the estimates are primarily driven by methodological and technical differences across studies, in particular the length of the event window and the construction of the surprise measure. Next part of the variation in the reported effects is associated with the country of the news announcement, the interest rate environment and the affiliation of the authors.
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Bortnikova et al. (2026) studied this question.
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