The Real Exchange Rate Fluctuations Puzzle: Evidence For Advanced And Transition Economies

Abstract

This paper tries to analyze the sources of the real exchange rate fluctuations for a set of advanced economies and Central and Eastern European transition economies. To address this, in a first step, we compute two measures of the share of the variance of the real exchange rate accounted for movements in the relative prices of traded goods between the countries. One measure is based on R2 coefficient and the other one is based on the mean-squared error (MSE) of the changes in the real exchange rate. In a second step, we estimate structural (identified) vector autoregression (SVAR) models, and decompose real and nominal exchange rate movements into those caused by real and nominal shocks. In a third step, we complete previous ones with an impulse-response analysis. Three central messages are derived from results: (1) for transition economies, under regimes of managed nominal exchange rates, the relative price of non-traded goods explain a large percentage of the variance of the real exchange rate; (2) there is evidence of instability in the variance decomposition of the real exchange rates for advanced economies across samples, and (3) as result of diverse fiscal and monetary policies in transition economies, real exchange rates in some economies are driven mostly by real shocks while in others are driven mostly by nominal shocks.