research

Imperfect Exchange Rate Passthrough: Strategic Pricing and Menu Costs

Abstract

A large body of literature finds that exporters do not pass nominal exchange rate movements fully through to destination market prices over short time horizons. This imperfect passthrough has been widely attributed to strategic “pricing-to-market”, whereby exporters deliberately accept changes in the home currency value of export prices in order to gain or defend market share. We show that imperfect passthrough in the short run may also arise from simple menu costs. In contrast to strategic pricing, however, the long run passthrough is complete under menu costs — with associated implications for trade adjustment. Examining the cover prices of two magazines, The Economist and Business Week, we find support for menu costs as a partial explanation of imperfect passthrough.

Similar works

Full text

thumbnail-image
Last time updated on 06/07/2012

This paper was published in Research Papers in Economics.

Having an issue?

Is data on this page outdated, violates copyrights or anything else? Report the problem now and we will take corresponding actions after reviewing your request.