Exchange Rate Policy And The Role Of Non Traded Goods Prices In Real Exchange Rate Fluctuations

This paper uses a DSGE model of two small open economies to explain certain features of real exchange rate cyclical fluctuations in countries with fixed and flexible exchange rates, focusing on the role of traded and non-traded goods prices. In particular, the model illustrates why the relative price of nontraded goods and the relative price between domestic and foreign traded goods are more volatile than the real exchange rate under a fixed exchange rate but not under a flexible exchange rate, why deviations from purchasing power parity for traded goods prices can be more volatile under a fixed exchange rate than under a flexible exchange rate, and why there is no correlation between the volatility of the real exchange rate and its variance decomposition.

This paper attempts to provide a perspective on real exchange rate developments following the inception of the EMS. The focus is on structural determinants of real exchange rates, notably the behavior of tradables and nontradable prices and productivity. It is found that changes in the relative price of tradable goods in terms of nontradables account for a sizable fraction of real exchange rate dynamics during the EMS period. Sectoral productivity growth differential help explain the behavior of the relative price of tradable goods, especially in the long run. There is also some evidence that the EMS has extended on relative price behavior.

"Changes in the price of nontradable goods relative to tradable goods account for roughly 50 percent of the cyclical movements in real exchange rates"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site

How should monetary policy respond to large fluctuations in world food prices? We study this question in an open economy model in which imported food has a larger weight in domestic consumption than abroad and international risk sharing can be imperfect. A key novelty is that the real exchange rate and the terms of trade can move in opposite directions in response to world food price shocks. This exacerbates the policy trade-off between stabilizing output prices vis a vis the real exchange rate, to an extent that depends on risk sharing and the price elasticity of exports. Under perfect risk sharing, targeting the headline CPI welfare-dominates targeting the PPI if the variance of food price shocks is not too small and the export price elasticity is realistically high. In such a case, however, targeting forecast CPI is a superior choice. With incomplete risk sharing, PPI targeting is clearly a winner.

This study measures the proportion of U.S. real exchange rate movements that can be accounted for by movements in the relative prices of non-traded goods. The decomposition is done at all possible horizons that the data allow -- from one month up to thirty years. The accounting is performed with five different measures of non-traded goods prices and real exchange rates, for exchange rates of the U.S. relative to a number of other high income countries in each case. The outcome is surprising -- relative prices of non-traded goods appear to account for essentially none of the movement of U.S. real exchange rates at any horizon. Only for one crude measure, which uses the aggregate producer price index as an index of traded goods prices, do non-traded goods prices seem to account for more than a tiny portion of real exchange rate changes. This pattern appears to be true even during fixed nominal exchange rate episodes. Special attention is paid to the U.S. real exchange rate with Japan. The possibility of mismeasurement of traded goods prices is explored.

We study the quarterly bilateral real exchange rate and the relative price of non-traded to traded goods for 1225 country pairs over 1980-2005. We show that the two variables are positively correlated, but that movements in the relative price measure are smaller than those in the real exchange rate. The relation between the two variables is stronger when there is an intense trade relationship between two countries and when the variance of the real exchange rate between them is small. The relation does not change for rich/poor country bilateral pairs or for high inflation/low inflation country pairs. We identify an anomaly: The relation between the real exchange rate and relative price of non-traded goods for US/EU bilateral trade partners is unusually weak.

This dissertation provides new empirical evidence on the importance of nontraded goods in real exchange rate volatility as well as two essays that evaluate the performance of a new trade model á la Ghironi and Melitz [2005] in replicating such evidence. Chapter 2 provides new empirical evidence by looking at more highly disaggregated data than used in previous literature on consumer price index components and trade for the US and Mexico for the period 2002 to 2009. The main empirical results from this exercise suggest that the relative price of nontraded to traded goods (RERN) accounts for between 64% and 73% of the real exchange rate volatility which is significantly higher than that found in past studies (around 30%). The correlation between RERN and the real exchange rate is 71%. In contrast with previous literature lower frequency data increases the importance of RERN in the real exchange rate volatility: for quarterly data it is between 68% and 84% and for annual data the importance is between 78% and 88%. These results provide new evidence against the sticky price theory; while they generally support the Balassa-Samuelson theory, facts regarding the correlation of traded and nontraded goods prices point to the need to modify some features of this theory. Chapter 3 evaluates whether a "new trade" model, where entry of heterogeneous firms into international trade is endogenous, can explain the empirical facts documented in chapter 2 better than can a standard Balassa-Samuelson theory, where nontraded goods are exogenously determined. A symmetric two country dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with heterogeneous firms and entry and exit from domestic and export markets, á la Ghironi and Melitz (2005), performs reasonably well in certain dimensions. Simulations show that the importance of the relative price of nontraded to traded goods (RERN) can explain between 80% and 89% of real exchange rate fluctuations, and can explain a correlation between RERN and the real exchange rate of 97%. The model fails to replicate the empirical evidence that the relative price of nontraded to traded goods is negatively correlated with the relative price of traded goods. Finally, in chapter 4 I calibrate the model to an asymmetric equilibrium where two different economies interact, one large economy representing the US and one small economy representing Mexico. The calibration will involve updating the value of some exogenous variables like the fixed export costs and re-calibrating the shape parameter k from the Pareto distribution. As a result of this new calibration the steady state of the model matches some of the US-Mexico relationships quite well. For example, the steady state of the model implies that home consumption is four times higher than foreign consumption. This value is close to the one reported by Bergin and Glick [2009]. Home real wage is 1.4 times that of foreign country. This value is significantly smaller than the values reported in other studies where wages in the US are up to eight times higher than in Mexico. Nevertheless, it can be considered a good feature of the model that home wages are higher. I conclude that the asymmetric calibration of the Ghironi and Melitz [2005] model improves its performance in replicating the stylized facts reported in chapter two, although, with some caveats regarding the signs and magnitudes of some of the correlations and the fact that moving from monthly to quarterly frequencies does not increases the importance of the relative price of nontraded to traded goods in explaining real exchange rate volatility.

This paper demonstrates that disturbances to supplies or demands for internationally traded goods affect exchange-rates differently than do disturbances in markets for nontraded goods. The paper develops a stochastic two-country equilibrium model of exchange rates, asset prices, and goods prices, with two internationally traded goods and a nontraded good in each country. Optimal portfolios differ across countries because of differences in consumption bundles. Changes in exchange-rates, asset prices, and goods prices occur in response to underlying disturbances to supplies and demands for goods. We examine the ways in which responses of the exchange-rate are related to parameters of tastes and production shares, and we discuss conditions under which these exchange-rate responses are "large" compared to the responses of ratios of nominal price indexes.

This paper develops a view of exchange rate policy as a trade-off between the desire to smooth fluctuations in real exchange rates so as to reduce distortions in consumption allocations, and the need to allow flexibility in the nominal exchange rate so as to facilitate terms of trade adjustment. We show that optimal nominal exchange rate volatility will reflect these competing objectives. The key determinants of how much the exchange rate should respond to shocks will depend on the extent and source of price stickiness, the elasticity of substitution between home and foreign goods, and the amount of home bias in production. Quantitatively, we find the optimal exchange rate volatility should be significantly less than would be inferred based solely on terms of trade considerations. Moreover, we find that the relationship between price stickiness and optimal exchange rate volatility may be non-monotonic.