This paper examines the effect of overall and sector-specific productivity shocks on the real exchange rate in small open economies. A dynamic stochastic small open economy model shows that productivity shocks impact the real exchange rate mostly through changes in the relative price of...

Real exchange rate variance decompositions indicate that only a small fraction of real exchange rate movements can be attributed to changes in the relative price between traded and non-traded goods. This paper argues that those exercises, by ignoring the nature of the shocks behind real exchange...