Productividad y Tipo de Cambio Real en Chile

Abstract

This paper studies the relation between productivity gains and the RER in Chile using three complementary methodologies. First, we calibrate a simple RER with Balassa-Samuelson effect with Chilean data. Second, we estimate cointegration vectors for the relation between RER with fundamentals (including productivity differentials). Third, we look at the international evidence on the relation between productivity and the RER using a panel of 92 countries with data from 1960 to 1990. The three methods yield surprisingly similar results. Explicitly considering the way the RER is constructed in Chile, our estimation indicates that the annual appreciation due to productivity differentials for the 1990-1997 period is in the range 0.7% to 0.9%.