Exchange rate volatility has undergone a secular decline since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. We conjecture that this phenomenon may have led to a generalized decreased need for risk exchange hedging in financial markets. Indeed, we find that the negative association between bilateral foreign portfolio investments and the volatility of the exchange rate has markedly weakened over time. This finding, which is particularly significant for large countries and in the post-crisis period, can also help explain the decline in bilateral investments among EMU member countries. We observe, in fact, that, after 2012, the distinctive fall of Euro-area bilateral equity investments is significantly explained by the global declining effect of exchange rate volatility on financial markets. A lower exchange rate volatility, associated with the ensuing generalized reduction in the perceived exchange rate risk, may have posed a challenge to the economic relevance of the full exchange risk hedging system represented by the common currency area, and hence to the attractiveness of reciprocal investments.

自布雷顿森林体系崩溃以来，汇率波动性经历了长期下降。我们推测，这种现象可能导致金融市场对风险交换对冲的需求普遍下降。事实上，我们发现双边外国证券投资与汇率波动之间的负相关关系随着时间的推移而明显减弱。这一发现对大国和后危机时期尤为重要，也有助于解释欧洲货币联盟成员国双边投资下降的原因。事实上，我们观察到，2012 年之后，欧元区双边股权投资的显着下降在很大程度上可以用汇率波动对金融市场的全球影响下降来解释。较低的汇率波动，