Currency Choice and Exchange Rate Pass-Through
50 Pages Posted: 24 Sep 2007 Last revised: 15 Sep 2022
Date Written: September 2007
Abstract
A central assumption of open economy macro models with nominal rigidities relates to the currency in which goods are priced, whether there is so-called producer currency pricing or local currency pricing. This has important implications for exchange rate pass-through and optimal exchange rate policy. We show, using novel transaction level information on currency and prices for U.S. imports, that even conditional on a price change, there is a large difference in the pass-through of the average good priced in dollars (25%) versus non-dollars (95%). This finding is contrary to the assumption in a large class of models that the currency of pricing is exogenous and is evidence of an important selection effect that results from endogenous currency choice. We describe a model of optimal currency choice in an environment of staggered price setting and show that the empirical evidence strongly supports the model's predictions of the relation between currency choice and pass-through. We further document evidence of significant real rigidities, with the pass-through of dollar pricers increasing above 50% in the long-run. Lastly, we numerically illustrate the currency choice decision in both a Calvo and a menu-cost model with variable mark-ups and imported intermediate inputs and evaluate the ability of these models to match pass-through patterns documented in the data.
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
By Maurice Obstfeld and Alan C. Stockman
-
By Maurice Obstfeld and Kenneth Rogoff
-
Can Sticky Price Models Generate Volatile and Persistent Real Exchange Rates?
By Varadarajan V. Chari, Patrick J. Kehoe, ...
-
Monetary Policy and Exchange Rate Volatility in a Small Open Economy
By Jordi Galí and Tommaso Monacelli
-
Monetary Policy and Exchange Rate Volatility in a Small Open Economy
By Jordi Galí and Tommaso Monacelli
-
Monetary Policy and Exchange Rate Volatility in a Small Open Economy
By Jordi Galí and Tommaso Monacelli
-
New Directions for Stochastic Open Economy Models
By Maurice Obstfeld and Kenneth Rogoff
-
Monetary Policy in the Open Economy Revisited: Price Setting and Exchange Rate Flexibility