Abstract
The central puzzle in international business cycles is that fluctuations in real exchange rates are volatile and persistent. We quantify the popular story for real exchange rate fluctuations: they are generated by monetary shocks interacting with sticky goods prices. If prices are held fixed for at least one year, risk aversion is high, and preferences are separable in leisure, then real exchange rates generated by the model are as volatile as in the data and quite persistent, but less so than in the data. The main discrepancy between the model and the data, the consumption-real exchange rate anomaly, is that the model generates a high correlation between real exchange rates and the ratio of consumption across countries, while the data show no clear pattern between these variables.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 533-563 |
| Number of pages | 31 |
| Journal | Review of Economic Studies |
| Volume | 69 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jul 2002 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Acknowledgements. Chari, Kehoe, and McGrattan thank the National Science Foundation for support. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis or the Federal Reserve System.