IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jmacro/v40y2014icp1-15.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Real exchange rate and productivity in a specific-factor model with skilled and unskilled labour

Author

Listed:
  • Doan, Thi Hong Thinh
  • Gente, Karine

Abstract

The present study develops a two-sector specific factor model in which capital is mobile between sectors. We assume that the traded (non-traded) sector uses skilled (unskilled) labour for production. The theoretical model reveals that the real exchange rate (RER) response to a productivity shock depends on the countries’ relative abundance of skilled labour: a rise in traded productivity leads to a higher RER appreciation in a country whose relative skilled labour rate is high. Using panel data, structural break tests confirm that the skilled versus unskilled labour ratio may be a significant splitting variable. In the long run, the relationship between productivity and RER may be positive or negative, as suggested by the theoretical model, depending on the country’s relative abundance of skilled labour.

Suggested Citation

  • Doan, Thi Hong Thinh & Gente, Karine, 2014. "Real exchange rate and productivity in a specific-factor model with skilled and unskilled labour," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 1-15.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jmacro:v:40:y:2014:i:c:p:1-15
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jmacro.2014.01.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0164070414000093
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jmacro.2014.01.005?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thi Hong Thinh Doan & Karine Gente, 2013. "Real Exchange Rate and Productivity in an OLG Model," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 109-110, pages 259-281.
    2. John Salt, 1997. "International Movements of the Highly Skilled," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 3, OECD Publishing.
    3. Takatoshi Ito & Peter Isard & Steven Symansky, 1999. "Economic Growth and Real Exchange Rate: An Overview of the Balassa-Samuelson Hypothesis in Asia," NBER Chapters, in: Changes in Exchange Rates in Rapidly Developing Countries: Theory, Practice, and Policy Issues, pages 109-132, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Christopoulos, Dimitris K. & Gente, Karine & León-Ledesma, Miguel A., 2012. "Net foreign assets, productivity and real exchange rates in constrained economies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 295-316.
    5. Canzoneri, Matthew B. & Cumby, Robert E. & Diba, Behzad, 1999. "Relative labor productivity and the real exchange rate in the long run: evidence for a panel of OECD countries," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 245-266, April.
    6. Balázs Égert & László Halpern & Ronald MacDonald, 2006. "Equilibrium Exchange Rates in Transition Economies: Taking Stock of the Issues," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(2), pages 257-324, April.
    7. Joakim Westerlund, 2007. "Testing for Error Correction in Panel Data," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 69(6), pages 709-748, December.
    8. Maddala, G S & Wu, Shaowen, 1999. "A Comparative Study of Unit Root Tests with Panel Data and a New Simple Test," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 61(0), pages 631-652, Special I.
    9. Paul R. Bergin & Reuven Glick & Alan M. Taylor, 2017. "Productivity, Tradability, and the Long-Run Price Puzzle," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: International Macroeconomic Interdependence, chapter 8, pages 211-248, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    10. Roberto Álvarez & Ricardo A. López, 2009. "Skill Upgrading and the Real Exchange Rate," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(8), pages 1165-1179, August.
    11. Ehsan U. Choudhri & Mohsin S. Khan, 2005. "Real Exchange Rates in Developing Countries: Are Balassa-Samuelson Effects Present?," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 52(3), pages 1-2.
    12. De Gregorio, Jose & Giovannini, Alberto & Wolf, Holger C., 1994. "International evidence on tradables and nontradables inflation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 1225-1244, June.
    13. Luca Antonio Ricci & Gian Maria Milesi-Ferretti & Jaewoo Lee, 2013. "Real Exchange Rates and Fundamentals: A Cross-Country Perspective," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 45(5), pages 845-865, August.
    14. Mollick, André Varella, 2009. "Employment Responses of Skilled and Unskilled Workers at Mexican Maquiladoras: The Effects of External Factors," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(7), pages 1285-1296, July.
    15. repec:adr:anecst:y:2013:i:109-110:p:11 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Takatoshi Ito & Anne O. Krueger, 1999. "Changes in Exchange Rates in Rapidly Developing Countries: Theory, Practice, and Policy Issues," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number ito_99-1, March.
    17. Egert, Balazs & Drine, Imed & Lommatzsch, Kirsten & Rault, Christophe, 2003. "The Balassa-Samuelson effect in Central and Eastern Europe: myth or reality?," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 552-572, September.
    18. Marcel P. Timmer & Gaaitzen J. de Vries, 2009. "Structural change and growth accelerations in Asia and Latin America: a new sectoral data set," Cliometrica, Journal of Historical Economics and Econometric History, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC), vol. 3(2), pages 165-190, June.
    19. Bela Balassa, 1964. "The Purchasing-Power Parity Doctrine: A Reappraisal," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 72, pages 584-584.
    20. Ito, Takatoshi & Krueger, Anne O. (ed.), 1999. "Changes in Exchange Rates in Rapidly Developing Countries," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226386737, December.
    21. G. S. Maddala & Shaowen Wu, 1999. "A Comparative Study of Unit Root Tests with Panel Data and a New Simple Test," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 61(S1), pages 631-652, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Florian Morvillier, 2020. "Robustness of the Balassa-Samuelson effect: evidence from developing and emerging economies," EconomiX Working Papers 2020-18, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christopoulos, Dimitris K. & Gente, Karine & León-Ledesma, Miguel A., 2012. "Net foreign assets, productivity and real exchange rates in constrained economies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 295-316.
    2. Couharde, Cécile & Delatte, Anne-Laure & Grekou, Carl & Mignon, Valérie & Morvillier, Florian, 2020. "Measuring the Balassa-Samuelson effect: A guidance note on the RPROD database," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 237-247.
    3. Florian Morvillier, 2020. "Robustness of the Balassa-Samuelson effect: evidence from developing and emerging economies," EconomiX Working Papers 2020-18, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    4. Matthias Gubler & Christoph Sax, 2019. "The Balassa-Samuelson effect reversed: new evidence from OECD countries," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 155(1), pages 1-21, December.
    5. Vikas Kakkar & Isabel Yan, 2012. "Real Exchange Rates and Productivity: Evidence from Asia," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44, pages 301-322, March.
    6. BERTINELLI, Luisito & CARDI, Olivier & RESTOUT, Romain, 2020. "Relative Productivity And Search Unemployment In An Open Economy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    7. Agnès Bénassy-Quéré & Dramane Coulibaly, 2014. "The impact of market regulations on intra-European real exchange rates," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 150(3), pages 529-556, August.
    8. Rod Tyers & Ying Zhang, 2014. "Real exchange rate determination and the China puzzle," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, The Crawford School, The Australian National University, vol. 28(2), pages 1-32, November.
    9. Vikas Kakkar & Isabel Yan, 2012. "Real Exchange Rates and Productivity: Evidence from Asia," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(2‐3), pages 301-322, March.
    10. Maryam Ishaq & Ghulam Ghouse & Muhammad Ishaq Bhatti, 2022. "Another Prospective on Real Exchange Rate and the Traded Goods Prices: Revisiting Balassa–Samuelson Hypothesis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-17, June.
    11. Luisito Bertinelli & Olivier Cardi & Romain Restout, 2015. "Technical Change Biased Toward the Traded Sector and Labor Market Frictions," Working Papers halshs-01252508, HAL.
    12. Cardi, Olivier & Restout, Romain, 2015. "Imperfect mobility of labor across sectors: a reappraisal of the Balassa–Samuelson effect," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 249-265.
    13. Noel GASTON & YOSHIMI Taiyo, 2020. "Heterogenous Job Separations and the Balassa-Samuelson Effect," Discussion papers 20032, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    14. García Solanes, José & Torrejón-Flores, Fernando, 2009. "The Balassa-Samuelson Hypothesis in Developed Countries and Emerging Market Economies: Different Outcomes Explained," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 3, pages 1-24.
    15. MacDonald, Ronald & Ricci, Luca Antonio, 2007. "Real exchange rates, imperfect substitutability, and imperfect competition," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 639-664, December.
    16. Max Groneck & Christoph Kaufmann, 2017. "Determinants of Relative Sectoral Prices: The Role of Demographic Change," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 79(3), pages 319-347, June.
    17. Romain Restout, 2009. "The Balassa-Samuelson model in general equilibrium with markup variations," EconomiX Working Papers 2009-39, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    18. Agnès Bénassy-Quéré & Dramane Coulibaly, 2013. "The Impact of Market Regulations on Intra-European Real Exchange Rates," Working Papers hal-04141221, HAL.
    19. Konopczak, Karolina & Welfe, Aleksander, 2017. "Convergence-driven inflation and the channels of its absorption," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 1019-1034.
    20. Echeverria Garaigorta, Paulina Elisa & Iza Padilla, María Amaya, 2010. "Prices and the Real Exchange Rate in Hong Kong: 1985-2006," DFAEII Working Papers 1988-088X, University of the Basque Country - Department of Foundations of Economic Analysis II.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Overlapping generations; Real exchange rate; Balassa–Samuelson effect; Skilled labour;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E39 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Other
    • F32 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Current Account Adjustment; Short-term Capital Movements
    • F41 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Open Economy Macroeconomics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jmacro:v:40:y:2014:i:c:p:1-15. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622617 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.