Real Exchange Rate and External Balance: How Important Are Price Deflators?

JaeBin Ahn, Rui Mano and Jing Zhou

No 2017/081, IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund

Abstract: This paper contrasts real exchange rate (RER) measures based on different deflators (CPI, GDP deflator, and ULC) and discusses potential implications for the link—or lack thereof—between RER and external balance. We begin by documenting patterns in the evolution of different measures of RERs, and confirm that the choice of deflator plays a significant role in RER movements. A subsequent empirical investigation based on 35 developed and emerging market economies over 1995 to 2014 yields comprehensive and robust evidence that only the RER deflated by ULC exhibits contemporaneous patterns consistent with the expenditure-switching mechanism. We rationalize the empirical findings by introducing a simple model featuring nominal rigidity and trade in intermediate goods as the one in Obstfeld (2001) and Devereux and Engel (2007), which is shown to generate qualitatively identical patterns to empirical findings.

Keywords: WP; GDP deflator; exchange rate; expenditure switching; Real exchange rate; External balance; Deflators; coefficient estimate; REER measure; REER-GDP deflator; expenditure-switching mechanism; standard error; Real effective exchange rates; Real exchange rates; Consumer price indexes; Deflation; Consumption; Global (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 49
Date: 2017-03-30
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=44780 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Real Exchange Rate and External Balance: How Important Are Price Deflators? (2020)
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:imf:imfwpa:2017/081

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/pubs/ord_info.htm

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Akshay Modi (amodi@imf.org).