Currency Unions, Product Introductions, and the Real Exchange Rate

53 Pages Posted: 22 Nov 2012 Last revised: 23 Mar 2023

See all articles by Alberto Cavallo

Alberto Cavallo

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Sloan School of Management

Brent Neiman

University of Chicago - Booth School of Business; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Roberto Rigobon

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Sloan School of Management

Date Written: November 2012

Abstract

We use a novel dataset of online prices of identical goods sold by four large global retailers in dozens of countries to study good-level real exchange rates and their aggregated behavior. First, in contrast to the prior literature, we demonstrate that the law of one price holds very well within currency unions for tens of thousands of goods sold by each of the retailers, implying good-level real exchange rates often equal to one. Prices of these same goods exhibit large deviations from the law of one price outside of currency unions, even when the nominal exchange rate is pegged. This clarifies that the common currency per se, and not simply the lack of nominal volatility, is important in reducing cross-country price dispersion. Second, we derive a new decomposition that shows that good-level real exchange rates in our data predominantly reflect differences in prices at the time products are first introduced, as opposed to the component emerging from heterogeneous passthrough or from nominal rigidities during the life of the good. Further, these international relative prices measured at the time of introduction move together with the nominal exchange rate. This stands in sharp contrast to pricing behavior in models where all price rigidity for any given good is due simply to costly price adjustment for that good.

Suggested Citation

Cavallo, Alberto and Neiman, Brent and Rigobon, Roberto, Currency Unions, Product Introductions, and the Real Exchange Rate (November 2012). NBER Working Paper No. w18563, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2179401

Alberto Cavallo (Contact Author)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Sloan School of Management ( email )

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Brent Neiman

University of Chicago - Booth School of Business ( email )

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HOME PAGE: http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/brent.neiman/index.html

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

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Roberto Rigobon

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Sloan School of Management ( email )

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United States
617-258-8374 (Phone)
617-258-6855 (Fax)

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