Firms’ Heterogeneity and Incomplete Pass-Through

A large body of empirical work documents that prices of traded goods change by a smaller proportion than real exchange rates between the trading countries (incomplete pass-through). The wedge between exchange rates and relative prices also varies a cross countries (pricing-to-market). I present a model of trade and international price-setting with heterogeneous firms, where firms’ strategic behavior implies that: 1) firm-level pass-through is incomplete and a U-shaped function of firm market share; 2) exchange rate fluctuations affect both the prices of traded goods and the prices of goods sold domestically; and 3) firm-level pass-through varies across destination countries. Estimates from a panel data set of cars prices support the predictions of the model.