State dependent pricing, invoicing currency, and exchange rate pass-through

We analyze exchange rate pass-through and volatility of import prices in a dynamic framework where firms are subject to menu costs and decide on price adjustments in response to exchange rate innovations. The exchange rate pass-through and import price volatility then depend on the invoicing currency in combination with functional forms of cost and demand functions. In particular, there is lower pass-through, less frequent price adjustments, and lower price volatility when prices are set in the importer's currency than when prices are set in the exporter's currency.     

Relative price volatility under Sudden Stops: The relevance of balance sheet effects

Sudden Stops are associated with increased volatility in relative prices. We introduce a model based on information acquisition to rationalize this increased volatility. An empirical analysis of the conditional variance of the wholesale price to consumer price ratio using panel ARCH techniques confirms the relevance of Sudden Stops and potential balance sheet effects as key determinants of relative price volatility, where balance sheet effects are captured by the interaction of a proxy for potential changes in the real exchange rate (linked to the degree of external leverage of the absorption of tradable goods) and a measure of domestic liability dollarization.     

Has exchange rate pass-through really declined? Evidence from Canada

Several empirical studies suggest that exchange rate pass-through has declined in recent years among industrialized countries. Results for Canada also indicate that import and consumer prices have become less responsive to exchange-rate movements in the 1990s. These findings are based on reduced-form regressions that are typically motivated by partial-equilibrium models of pricing. This paper uses instead a structural, general-equilibrium approach to test the premise that exchange rate pass-through has decreased in Canada. Our approach consists in estimating a dynamic stochastic general-equilibrium model for Canada over two sub-samples, which cover the periods before and after the adoption of inflation targeting by the Bank of Canada. We then use impulse-response analysis to assess the stability of exchange rate pass-through across the two sub-samples. Our results indicate that pass-through to Canadian import prices has been rather stable, while pass-through to Canadian consumer prices has declined in recent years. Counterfactual experiments reveal that the change in monetary policy regime is largely responsible for this decline.     

Persistent real exchange rates

Three well known facts that characterize exchange rate data are: (a) the high correlation between bilateral nominal and real exchange rates; (b) the high degree of persistence in real exchange rate movements; and (c) the high volatility of real exchange rates. This paper attempts a joint, albeit partial, rationalization of these facts in an environment with no staggered contracts and where prices are preset for only one quarter. There are two key innovations in the paper. First, we augment a standard two-country open economy model with learning-by-doing in production at the firm level. This induces monopolistically competitive firms to endogeneize the productivity effect of their price setting behavior. Specifically, firms endogenously choose not to adjust prices by the full proportion of a positive monetary shock in order to take advantage of the productivity benefits of higher production. Second, we introduce habits in leisure. This makes the labor supply decision dynamic and adds an additional source of propagation. We show that the calibrated model can quantitatively reproduce significant fractions of the aforementioned facts. Moreover, as in the data, the model also produces a positive correlation between the terms of trade and the nominal exchange rate.     

Foreign monetary shocks,differentiated products and international transmission: a two-country model with intra-industry trade

In this paper we study how the impact of a foreign monetary shock is transmitted between two monopolistically competitive economies engaging in intra-industry trade with differentiated products. Intra-industry trade is the only international link that works through the flexible exchange rate affecting national price levels and a product's internal and external relative prices. While national price levels are subject to purchasing power parity, the two relative prices are determined by the interaction between macro and micro variables. In this context, the exchange rate can insulate a national economy perfectly from a foreign monetary shock provided that monopolists adjust prices. Even if monopolists keep prices rigid, this shock only affects domestic real balances and aggregate demand, leaving domestic aggregate output unchanged because the real balances effect is just offset by the resulting unfavorable relative prices effects under the assumption of Spence-Dixit-Stiglitz preferences.     

人民币升值是治理当前通货膨胀的有效手段吗?——基于人民币汇率对国内物价传导效果的实证研究

随着人民币汇率浮动幅度的扩大,汇率变动对国内物价水平的影响程度日益引起人们的关注。在对国内外相关文献进行回顾的基础上,本文旨在从实证的角度考察分析人民币汇率变动对国内进口品价格、企业商品价格和消费者价格的传导效果,并通过稳定性检验考察人民币汇率形成机制改革对我国汇率传导效果的影响,这些结论可结合我国的具体国情予以合理解释。     

Real and nominal shocks in a two-country price-setting world

This paper develops a two-country model in which the law of one price does not hold in the short run, and which is consistent with the stylized fact that exchange rates respond more quickly to ‘news’ than prices. This is done by assuming that firms face lumpy information costs in determining what price to charge. Both domestic and imported goods prices are therefore sticky with respect to ‘news’, and deviations from the law of one price (PPP) are due to exchange rate surprises. The model is used to analyze the domestic and international impact of real and nominal disturbances.     

我国房价变动与进口贸易的关系:基于GMM与主成分因子的分析

本文利用中国1991至2009年的月度住宅销售平均价格数据,在广义矩方法(GMM)的基础上,重点引入基于时间序列数据的主成分因子分析模型进行实证研究,发现进口总值与商品房屋平均销售价格呈正相关关系,且进口总值的变动是房价变动的格兰杰原因,这可能与生产性厂商更多地选择投资房产有关。主成分因子分析结果表明,房价和其他四个解释变量组成的线性回归模型,可以很好地解释进口总值的变动。     

Duopolists’ Retail Pricing Behavior in Multiple Markets

The law of one price asserts that, with costless trade, prices for identical goods in different countries should be equal after accounting for the exchange rate. The empirical literature suggests that exchange rate pass-through to prices is low and that the law of one price fails; instead, firms are more likely to price to market. This study adds to the literature by examining the pricing strategy of comic book firms within the context of the competition’s pricing behavior in a duopoly industry. Comic books, uniquely, display their retail prices in multiple countries on their cover giving us detailed information about the pricing behavior of each individual firm and their competition which allows us to test a pricing-to-market model. We find that an empirical model of an imperfectly applied law of one price outperforms a simple competitive, pricing-to-market model of pricing. Retail exchange rate pass-through rates between Canada and the United States average 76.8 %. This high exchange rate pass-through rate for comic books exists despite the existence of sticky prices and convenience pricing.     

房地产泡沫的虚拟经济决定论及其实证检验

现代房地产具有虚拟资产特征。对房地产泡沫的虚拟经济决定论的实证检验包括:房地产价格与货币政策、利率政策、信贷波动及股价各自之间的相关检验。结果发现,货币供应量、利率等虚拟经济变量对房地产价格都存在显著的影响。整体而言,来自中国的实证分析初步支持了房地产泡沫的货币推动假说,房地产泡沫是一种货币现象的判断。     

Investigating first‐stage exchange rate pass‐through: Sectoral and macro evidence from euro area countries

In this paper, we evaluate the first‐stage pass‐through, namely the responsiveness of import prices to the exchange rate changes, for a sample of euro area (EA) countries. Our study aimed to shed further light on the role of microeconomic factors versus macroeconomic factors in influencing the extent of the exchange rate pass‐through (ERPT). As a first step, we conduct a sectoral analysis using disaggregated import prices data. We find a much higher degree of pass‐through for more homogeneous goods and commodities, such as oil and raw materials, than for highly differentiated manufactured products, such as machinery and transport equipment. Our results confirm that cross‐country differences in pass‐through rates may be due to divergences in the product composition of imports. The higher share of imports from sectors with lower degrees of pass‐through, the lower ERPT for an economy will be. In a next step, we investigate for the impact of some macroeconomics factors or common events experienced by EA members on the extent of pass‐through. Using the system generalised method of moments within a dynamic panel‐data model, our estimates indicate that decline of import‐price sensitivity to the exchange rate is not significant since the introduction of the single currency. Our findings suggest instead that the weakness of the euro during the first 3 years of the monetary union significantly raised the extent of the ERPT. This outcome could explain why the sensitivity of import prices has not fallen since 1999. We also point out a significant role played by the inflation in the Eurozone, as the responsiveness of import prices to exchange rate fluctuations tends to decline in a low and more stable inflation environment. Overall, our findings support the view that the extent of pass‐through is comprised of both macro‐ and microeconomic aspects that policymakers should take into account.     

人民币汇率变动的进口价格传递效应——基于企业类型的实证研究

汇率传递是汇率变动与其经济影响的中间环节。传递弹性在很大程度上决定了汇率变动经济影响的大小。利用分布滞后模型、协整、向量自回归等方法,研究本国企业和外资企业的进口价格对人民币汇率变动的传递效应,结果显示,外资企业进口价格的传递弹性明显大于本国企业,人民币升值对外资企业进口的促进作用较明显。由于外资企业进口的很大部分是用于加工贸易,其较高的传递弹性会在一定程度上抵消人民币升值对出口的负面影响。     

Openness and optimal monetary policy

We show that the composition of international trade has important implications for the optimal volatility of the exchange rate, above and beyond the size of trade flows. Using an analytically tractable small open economy model, we characterize the impact of the trade composition on the policy trade-off and on the role played by the exchange rate in correcting for price misalignments. Contrary to models where openness can be summarized by the degree of home bias, we find that openness can be a poor proxy of the welfare impact of alternative monetary policies. Using input–output data for 25 countries we document substantial differences in the import and non-tradable content of final demand components, and in the role played by imported inputs in domestic production. The estimates are used in a richer small-open-economy DSGE model to quantify the loss from an exchange rate peg relative to the Ramsey policy conditional on the composition of imports. We find that the main determinant of the losses is the share of non-traded goods in final demand.     

Price developments after a nominal shock: Benford's Law and psychological pricing after the euro introduction

Retail managers use psychological pricing to make the prices of goods appear to be just below a round number. The euro introduction in 2002, with its various exchange rates, distorted existing nominal price patterns while at the same time retaining real prices. We studied consumer prices before and after the introduction of the euro by using Benford's Law as a benchmark for price adjustments. Results indicate the usefulness of this benchmark for detecting irregularities in prices, and a clear trend towards psychological pricing after the nominal shock of the euro introduction. In addition, the tendency towards psychological prices results in different inflation rates in dependence of the price pattern.     

Exchange rates and prices: Evidence from China

This article develops a pricing model that incorporates an industrial organization approach with the traditional quantity theory of money to explain the impact of exchange rates on consumer prices. Using time-series data on prices and exchange rates of China, the model replicates the main features of the observed facts: exchange rates influence consumer prices through changing import prices; money supply and output influence consumer prices following the quantity theory. The estimating results show that exchange-rate pass-through to consumer prices is low and increases from the short run to the long run. The extent of pass-through is likely to depend on markup adjustment and marginal costs.     

Incomplete pass-through and the welfare effects of exchange rate variability

This paper considers the implications of incomplete exchange rate pass-through for optimal monetary and exchange rate policy. A two-country model is presented, which allows an explicit derivation of welfare functions in terms of a weighted sum of the second moments of producer prices and the nominal exchange rate. From a single country perspective, the optimal exchange rate variance depends on the degree of pass-through, the size and openness of the economy, the elasticity of labour supply and the volatility of foreign producer prices. Welfare may be decreasing or increasing in the volatility of the exchange rate.     

INFLATION AND THE TIMING OF PRICE CHANGES (*)

Consider an oligopolistic industry in which the firms produce perfect substitutes and incur transaction costs of changing price. Under constant inflation, there is an equilibrium in which the firms change their nominal prices at equally spaced time-points. Increasing the inflation rate increases the size of price changes, increases the frequency of price changes, and increases the average real price paid by buyers. The analysis derives its significance from its implications for the welfare costs of inflation: the inflation-induced distortions in relative prices are larger the more sticky nominal prices are; and are larger the greater the tendency for firms to stagger (rather than synchronize) their price changes.     

Twin dollarization and exchange rate policy

This paper develops a small open economy general equilibrium model with nominal rigidities to study twin dollarization in East Asian economies, a phenomenon where firms borrow in US dollars and also set export prices in US dollars. In this model, we endogenize both the currency of liability denomination and the currency of export pricing. We show that a key factor that affects firms' dollarization decisions is exchange rate policy. Twin dollarization is an optimal strategy for all firms when exchange rate flexibility is limited, which implies that a fixed exchange rate regime may lead to an equilibrium with twin dollarization. Furthermore, we find that twin dollarization can reduce the welfare loss caused by the fixed exchange rate regime, as it helps to cushion the economy against domestic nominal risk.     

不完全汇率传递下的货币政策工具规则分析

本文尝试构建一个开放条件下的总供给-总需求模型,通过名义进口价格刚性在模型中引入汇率传递因素。模型对各种货币政策工具规则下社会福利损失函数进行比较,考察在不同的汇率传递程度下的各种货币政策工具规则。研究结果显示,社会福利水平随着汇率传递程度下降而提高;货币政策工具规则对消费者物价指数(CPI)上涨作出反应一定程度上优于对国内制造商品价格上涨作出反应,制定的货币政策工具规则应该以CPI为目标,以使社会福利损失最小。     

Who bears the cost of a change in the exchange rate? Pass-through accounting for the case of beer

Nominal exchange rates are remarkably volatile. They ordinarily appear disconnected from the fundamentals of the economies whose currencies they price. These facts make up a classic puzzle about the international economy. If prices do not respond fully to changes in the nominal exchange rate, who bears the cost of such large and unpredictable changes: foreign firms, domestic firms, or domestic consumers? This study presents a new analysis of the sources of incomplete pass-through and then uses this analysis to re-examine its implications for social welfare. I develop and estimate a structural model that analyzes the sources of local-currency price stability for a particular industry. The model enables counterfactual simulations that quantify the relative importance of firms' local-cost components and markup adjustments in the incomplete transmission of exchange-rate shocks to prices and the effect of the exchange-rate shock on domestic and foreign firms' profits and on consumer surplus. The model is applied to a panel dataset of one industry with retail and wholesale prices for UPC-level products. I find that markup adjustments by manufacturers and the retailer explain roughly half of the incomplete transmission and local-cost components account for the other half. Foreign manufacturers generally bear a greater cost (or reap a greater benefit) following an exchange-rate-induced marginal-cost shock than do domestic consumers, domestic manufacturers, or the domestic retailer.