Optimal Monetary Policy Under a Global Dollar Standard: The Effect of Vertical Trade and Production

Abstract

This paper revisits Devereux et al. (J Int Econ 71:113–132 2007) which studies trade and macroeconomic behaviour in a two-country model under a reference currency such as the dollar in US-China trade. The home country (e.g. the US) sets its export prices in dollars and so does the foreign country (e.g. China), so that the US has Local Currency Pricing (LCP) of its imports while China has Producer Currency Pricing (PCP) of its imports. We crucially modify their model by adding the large and by now well-known trade in intermediate goods. The addition implies that there is now exchange-rate pass-through via intermediate-goods markets into US import prices which thereby become to some degree PCP like China; accordingly monetary expansion in the US now produces not merely an expansion effect in both countries but also an expenditure-switching effect towards itself by lowering its exchange rate and so raising the relative US consumer prices of Chinese goods. This modification has implications for the effects of monetary policy in both countries.