TY - JOUR AB - Purpose The main aim of this paper is to examine the mechanism of determining the exchange rate of the US dollar against the Indonesian rupiah (USD/IDR) by market players to manage the USD/IDR exchange rate stability. Thus, this study is expected to provide a better understanding of the determinants of the USD/IDR, given that the data set completely encompasses all the USD/IDR transactions in the Indonesian foreign exchange market. Order flow data used in this study cover all transactions on the USD/IDR conducted by domestic residents including both individuals and corporations and foreign investors in the Indonesian foreign exchange market.Design/methodology/approach This study covers the data set over the period January 3, 2011 to December 31, 2015, and the vector autoregression and autoregressive distributed lag models are used in examining the research questions. More particularly, in this study, the author examines whether the net total domestic individual transactions (DOVA), net total domestic corporation transactions (KOVA), net total foreign investor transactions (IOVA), Asian Dollar Index (ADXY), non-deliverable forward (NDF) for USD/IDR and Volatility Index (VIX) are statistically significant determinants of the USD/IDR exchange rate.Findings Overall, this study suggests that in the short run, lag of the USD/IDR exchange rate or inertia level, lag of the IOVA, lag of the NDF of the USD/IDR exchange rate and lag of the ADXY are statistically significant determinants of the USD/IDR. On the other hand, in the long run, DOVA, NDF and ADXY are found to be statistically significant determinants of USD/IDR. This study also found that there is a market leader and asymmetric information among market players in the Indonesian foreign exchange market, and their USD/IDR exchange rate level becomes a reference for other market players when conducting transactions with each other.Originality/value The paper is original along two lines. First, the data set used in this study is unique. It encompasses all the USD/IDR transactions in the Indonesian foreign exchange market. The order flow data used in this study cover all transactions on the USD/IDR conducted by domestic residents (includes both individuals and corporations) and foreign investors in the Indonesian foreign exchange market. Such an approach has not been used previously to study the exchange rate behavior in an emerging market. Second, there is limited knowledge on Indonesia’s exchange rate dynamics. This study fills this gap. VL - 38 IS - 2 SN - 1086-7376 DO - 10.1108/SEF-09-2018-0296 UR - https://doi.org/10.1108/SEF-09-2018-0296 AU - Rahman R. Eki PY - 2019 Y1 - 2019/01/01 TI - Understanding Indonesia’s exchange rate behavior T2 - Studies in Economics and Finance PB - Emerald Publishing Limited SP - 189 EP - 206 Y2 - 2024/04/19 ER -