The real exchange rate (RER) measures relative price levels across countries, capturing deviations from purchasing power parity (PPP). RER is a key variable in international macroeconomic models as it is central to equilibrium conditions in both goods and asset markets. It is also one of the...

We study a newly constructed panel data set of relative prices of a large number of consumer goods among 31 European countries. We find that there is a substantial and non-diminishing deviation from PPP at all levels of aggregation, even among eurozone members. However, real exchange rates are...

Standard models of international risk sharing with complete asset markets predict a positive association between relative consumption growth and real exchange-rate depreciation across countries. The striking lack of evidence for this link the consumption/real-exchange-rate anomaly or...

This paper develops a view of exchange rate policy as a trade-off between the desire to smooth fluctuations in real exchange rates so as to reduce distortions in consumption allocations, and the need to allow flexibility in the nominal exchange rate so as to facilitate terms of trade adjustment....

This paper explores the hypothesis that high volatility of real and nominal exchange rates may be due to the fact that local currency pricing eliminates the pass-through from changes in exchange rates to consumer prices. Exchange rates may be highly volatile because in a sense they have little...

We propose a dynamic general equilibrium model of exchange rate determination, which simultaneously accounts for all major puzzles associated with nominal and real exchange rates. This includes the Meese-Rogoff disconnect puzzle, the PPP puzzle, the terms-of-trade puzzle, the Backus- Smith...

We investigate the link between real exchange rates and sectoral total factor productivity measures for countries in the Eurozone. Real exchange rate patterns closely accord with an amended Balassa-Samuelson interpretation, both in cross-section and time series. We construct a sticky price...

A basic prediction of effcient risk-sharing is that relative consumption growth rates across countries or regions should be positively related to real exchange rate growth rates across the same areas. We investigate this hypothesis, employing a newly constructed multi-country and multi-regional...

Financial markets play two roles with implications for the exchange rate: they accommodate risk sharing and act as a source of shocks. In prevailing theories, these roles are seen as mutually exclusive and individually face challenges in explaining exchange rate dynamics. However, we demonstrate...

We use a general open-economy wedge-accounting framework to characterize the set of shocks that can account for major exchange rate puzzles. Focusing on a near-autarky behavior of the economy, we show analytically that all standard macroeconomic shocks -- including productivity, monetary,...