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Working Paper
Mussa redux and conditional PPP
Long half-lives of real exchange rates are often used as evidence against monetary sticky price models. In this study we show how exchange rate regimes alter the long-run dynamics and half-life of the real exchange rate, and we recast the classic defense of such models by Mussa (1986) from an argument based on short-run volatility to one based on long-run dynamics. The first key result is that the extremely persistent real exchange rate found commonly in post Bretton Woods data does not apply to the preceding fixed exchange rate period in our sample, where the half-live was roughly half as ...
Working Paper
The micro-macro disconnect of purchasing power parity
The persistence of aggregate real exchange rates is a prominent puzzle, particularly since adjustment of international relative prices in microeconomic data is much faster. This paper finds that adjustment to the law of one price in disaggregated data is not just a faster version of the adjustment to purchasing power parity in the aggregate data; while aggregate real exchange rate adjustment works primarily through the foreign exchange market, adjustment in disaggregated data is a qualitatively distinct process, working through adjustment in local-currency goods prices. These distinct ...
Working Paper
“Conditional PPP” and Real Exchange Rate Convergence in the Euro Area
While economic theory highlights the usefulness of flexible exchange rates in promoting adjustment in international relative prices, flexible exchange rates also can be a source of destabilizing shocks. We find that when countries joining the euro currency union abandoned their national exchange rates, the adjustment of real exchange rates toward their long-run equilibrium surprisingly became faster. To investigate, we distinguish between differing rates of purchasing power parity (PPP) convergence conditional on alternative shocks, which we refer to as ?conditional PPP.? We find that the ...