Dominant Currencies: How firms choose currency invoicing and why it matters

Oleg Itskhoki, Mary Amiti and Jozef Konings

No 15339, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: The currency of invoicing in international trade is central for the international transmission of shocks and macroeconomic policies. Using a new dataset on currency invoicing for Belgian firms, we analyze how firms make their currency choice, for both exports and imports, and the implications of this choice for exchange rate pass-through into prices and quantities. We derive our estimating equations from a theoretical framework that features variable markups, international input sourcing, and staggered price setting with endogenous currency choice, and also allowing for the dominant currency choice. Our structural specification provides a new test of the allocative consequences of nominal rigidities, by estimating the treatment effect of foreign-currency price stickiness on the dynamic response of prices and quantities to exchange rate changes, controlling for the endogeneity of the firm's currency choice. We show that flexible-price determinants of exchange rate pass-through are also the key firm characteristics that determine currency choice. In particular, small non-importing firms tend to price their exports in euros (producer currency) and exhibit close to complete exchange-rate pass-through into destination prices at all horizons. In contrast, large import-intensive firms tend to denominate their exports in foreign currencies, and especially in the US dollar, exhibiting a lower pass-through of the euro-destination exchange rate and a pronounced sensitivity to the dollar-destination exchangerate. Finally, the effects of foreign-currency price stickiness are still significant beyond the one-year horizon, but gradually dissipate in the long run, consistent with sticky price models of currency choice.

Keywords: Currency choice; Exchange rate pass-through (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E31 F31 F41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ifn, nep-mac, nep-mon and nep-opm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP15339 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Journal Article: Dominant Currencies: How Firms Choose Currency Invoicing and Why it Matters (2022)
Working Paper: Dominant Currencies: How Firms Choose Currency Invoicing and Why it Matters (2020)
Working Paper: Dominant currencies How firms choose currency invoicing and why it matters (2018)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15339

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP15339

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().