Market Share and Exchange Rate Pass-through: Competition among exporters of the same nationality

Our dataset is unique and allows us to control for market share among competing exporters with the same nationality. Using a sample from January 1988 to December 2005 on exports of five Japanese major ports to six destination countries, we examine the effect of market share (with respect to competitors from the same country) on exchange rate pass-through (ERPT). We provide empirical evidence that market share among the same nationality on exchange rate pass-through matters and is consistent with the findings of Feenstra et al. (1996), which show a non-linear relationship between market share and exchange rate pass-through. The result remains robust when the market share of the country is also included in the regression. Quantifying the economic significance of the market share effect, our evidence shows that the shifts in the ERPT of Japanese exports are more pronounced in Asian countries whereas the ERPT has been relatively stable over the last two decades for the United States. Our evidence implies that Japanese exports do not account for the observed recent decline in the ERPT of U.S. imports whereas Japanese exports' ERPT declined more substantially in China.