IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/4231.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Real Exchange Rates and Relative Prices: An Empirical Investigation

Author

Listed:
  • Charles Engel

Abstract

This paper uncovers a striking empirical regularity: the consumer price of a good relative to a different good within a country tends to be much less variable than the price of that good relative to a similar good in another country. This fact seems to hold for all goods except very simple, homogeneous products. Models of real exchange rates are likely to have predictions regarding this relation, so this fact may provide a useful gauge for discriminating among models.

Suggested Citation

  • Charles Engel, 1992. "Real Exchange Rates and Relative Prices: An Empirical Investigation," NBER Working Papers 4231, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:4231
    Note: ITI IFM
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w4231.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Giovannini, Alberto, 1988. "Exchange rates and traded goods prices," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1-2), pages 45-68, February.
    2. Richard C. Marston, 1990. "Systematic Movements in Real Exchange Rates in the G-5: Evidence on theIntegration of Internal and External Markets," NBER Working Papers 3332, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Dornbusch, Rudiger, 1976. "Expectations and Exchange Rate Dynamics," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(6), pages 1161-1176, December.
    4. Marston, Richard C., 1990. "Systematic movements in real exchange rates in the G-5 : Evidence on the integration of internal and external markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 14(5), pages 1023-1044, November.
    5. Isard, Peter, 1977. "How Far Can We Push the "Law of One Price"?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(5), pages 942-948, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. repec:onb:oenbwp:y::i:28:b:1 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Depken, Craig II & Sonora, Robert J., 2002. "International price volatility: Evidence from U.S. and Mexican cities," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 179-193, August.
    3. MacDonald, Ronald, 1998. "What determines real exchange rates?: The long and the short of it," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 117-153, June.
    4. Lucio Sarno & Mark P. Taylor, 2002. "Purchasing Power Parity and the Real Exchange Rate," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 49(1), pages 1-5.
    5. Froot, Kenneth A. & Rogoff, Kenneth, 1995. "Perspectives on PPP and long-run real exchange rates," Handbook of International Economics, in: G. M. Grossman & K. Rogoff (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 32, pages 1647-1688, Elsevier.
    6. Midrigan, Virgiliu, 2007. "International price dispersion in state-dependent pricing models," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(8), pages 2231-2250, November.
    7. Kul B. Luintel, 2000. "Real exchange rate behaviour: evidence from black markets," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(2), pages 161-185.
    8. Kenneth Rogoff, 1996. "The Purchasing Power Parity Puzzle," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 647-668, June.
    9. Siregar, Reza, 2011. "The Concepts of Equilibrium Exchange Rate: A Survey of Literature," MPRA Paper 28987, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. 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.
    11. Menzie Chinn & Louis Johnston, 1996. "Real Exchange Rate Levels, Productivity and Demand Shocks: Evidence from a Panel of 14 Countries," NBER Working Papers 5709, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Willem H. Buiter & Marcus Miller, 1991. "Real Exchange Rate Overshooting and the Output Cost of Bringing Down Inflation," NBER Chapters, in: International Volatility and Economic Growth: The First Ten Years of The International Seminar on Macroeconomics, pages 239-277, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Rodolphe Blavy & Luciana Juvenal, 2009. "Mexico's integration into NAFTA markets: a view from sectoral real exchange rates," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 91(Sep), pages 441-464.
    14. Ana Iregui & Jesús Otero, 2011. "Testing the law of one price in food markets: evidence for Colombia using disaggregated data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 40(2), pages 269-284, April.
    15. Song, Chi-Young, 1997. "The Real Exchange Rate and the Current Account Balance in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 143-184, June.
    16. Frenkel, Jacob A. & Mussa, Michael L., 1985. "Asset markets, exchange rates and the balance of payments," Handbook of International Economics, in: R. W. Jones & P. B. Kenen (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 14, pages 679-747, Elsevier.
    17. Yan, Beiling, 2002. "Purchasing Power Parity: A Canada/U.S. Exploration," Economic Analysis (EA) Research Paper Series 2002002e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    18. Engel, Charles & Rogers, John H., 2001. "Deviations from purchasing power parity: causes and welfare costs," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 29-57, October.
    19. Couharde, Cécile & Sallenave, Audrey, 2013. "How do currency misalignments’ threshold affect economic growth?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 106-120.
    20. Richard M. Levich, 1983. "Empirical Studies of Exchange Rates: Price Behavior, Rate Determinationand Market Efficiency," NBER Working Papers 1112, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Kenneth A. Froot & Michael Kim & Kenneth Rogoff, 2019. "The Law of One Price Over 700 Years," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 20(1), pages 1-35, May.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F30 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - General

    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:nbr:nberwo:4231. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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: (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.