IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ijf/ijfiec/v14y2009i2p188-198.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Exchange rates and product variety

Author

Listed:
  • Witness Simbanegavi

    (School of Economics, University of Cape Town, South Africa)

Abstract

We study the role of exchange rate variability in the firm's choice of whether to offer one or two varieties. We show that variability induces the firm to vertically segment markets (offer two varieties). This happens because variability in the exchange rate affects income dispersion and hence the firm's incentives to extract consumer surplus. To better extract surplus, the firm offers two price-quality menus, a high-quality variant geared for top-end surplus extraction and a low-quality variant to address market coverage concerns. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Witness Simbanegavi, 2009. "Exchange rates and product variety," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(2), pages 188-198.
    • Handle: RePEc:ijf:ijfiec:v:14:y:2009:i:2:p:188-198
    DOI: 10.1002/ijfe.362
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/ijfe.362
    File Function: Link to full text; subscription required
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/ijfe.362?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Friberg, Richard, 2001. "Two monies, two markets?: Variability and the option to segment," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 317-327, December.
    2. Richard Baldwin & Paul Krugman, 1989. "Persistent Trade Effects of Large Exchange Rate Shocks," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 104(4), pages 635-654.
    3. Jaskold Gabszewicz, Jean & Shaked, Avner & Sutton, John & Thisse, Jacques-Francois, 1986. "Segmenting the market: The monopolist's optimal product mix," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 273-289, August.
    4. GABSZEWICZ, Jean J., 1983. "Blue and red cars, or blue cars only? A note on product variety," LIDAM Reprints CORE 524, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    5. Dornbusch, Rudiger, 1987. "Exchange Rates and Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(1), pages 93-106, March.
    6. Richard Friberg, 1999. "Exchange Rates and the Firm," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-333-98237-2, October.
    7. repec:bla:econom:v:50:y:1983:i:198:p:203-06 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Harald Badinger & Kemal Türkcan, 2014. "Currency Unions, Export Margins, and Product Differentiation: An Empirical Assessment for European Monetary Union," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(1), pages 13-30, February.
    2. repec:wsr:pbrief:y:2012:i:015 is not listed on IDEAS

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Witness Simbanegavi, 2007. "Exchange Rates and Product Variety," Working Papers 060, Economic Research Southern Africa.
    2. Robert, Anderton & Baldwin, Richard & Taglioni, Daria, 2007. "The impact of monetary union on trade prices," Journal of Financial Transformation, Capco Institute, vol. 19, pages 35-48.
    3. Yunus Aksoy & Hanno Lustig, 2007. "Exchange Rates, Prices And International Trade In A Model Of Endogenous Market Structure," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 75(2), pages 160-192, March.
    4. Guney, Selin, 2015. "An Analysis of the Pass-Through of Exchange Rates in Tropical Forest Product Markets: A Smooth Transition Approach," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 205107, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    5. Qian, Ying & Varangis, Panos, 1992. "Does exchange rate volatility hinder export growth? Additional evidence," Policy Research Working Paper Series 911, The World Bank.
    6. Lahmandi-Ayed, Rim, 2010. "Spatial differentiation, divisible consumption and the pro-competitive effect of income," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 71-85, January.
    7. Maria Guadalupe, 2007. "Product Market Competition, Returns to Skill, and Wage Inequality," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25(3), pages 439-474.
    8. Jonathan McCarthy, 2007. "Pass-Through of Exchange Rates and Import Prices to Domestic Inflation in Some Industrialized Economies," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 33(4), pages 511-537, Fall.
    9. Carlo Gola, 2000. "Export pricing strategy of Italian firms: from the depreciation of the lira to the euro," LIUC Papers in Economics 77, Cattaneo University (LIUC).
    10. Obstfeld, Maurice, 2002. "Exchange Rates and Adjustment: Perspectives from the New Open Economy Macroeconomics," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt5t38s42v, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    11. Rogers, John H. & Jenkins, Michael, 1995. "Haircuts or hysteresis? Sources of movements in real exchange rates," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(3-4), pages 339-360, May.
    12. Jean-Marc Bonnisseau & Hend Ghazzai, 2005. "Monopole, stratégies multiproduit et incitation à la recherche et développement," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00193974, HAL.
    13. Joshua Aizenman, 1992. "Exchange Rate Flexibility, Volatility, and the Patterns of Domestic and Foreign Direct Investment," NBER Working Papers 3953, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Sarah Guillou, 2008. "Exports and exchange rate : a firm-level investigation," Working Papers hal-00973044, HAL.
    15. Campa, Jose Manuel & Goldberg, Linda S, 1999. "Investment, Pass-Through, and Exchange Rates: A Cross-Country Comparison," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 40(2), pages 287-314, May.
    16. Loginova, Daria, 2022. "Assessing the Short-term Effect of Exchange Rate Liberalisation on Food Import Prices: The Regression Discontinuity in Time Employed for Russian Food Markets in 2014," Research on World Agricultural Economy, Nan Yang Academy of Sciences Pte Ltd (NASS), vol. 3(3), September.
    17. Campa, Jose & Goldberg, Linda S., 1995. "Investment in manufacturing, exchange rates and external exposure," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(3-4), pages 297-320, May.
    18. Vicente Cuñat & Maria Guadalupe, 2005. "How Does Product Market Competition Shape Incentive Contracts?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(5), pages 1058-1082, September.
    19. Sekkat Khalid, 2001. "On the Aggregate Impact of Exchange Rate Variability on EU Trade," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 2(1), pages 57-78, February.
    20. Andrea Lassmann, 2013. "Exchange Rate Transmission and Export Activity at the Firm Level," KOF Working papers 13-331, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ijf:ijfiec:v:14:y:2009:i:2:p:188-198. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing or Christopher F. Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.interscience.wiley.com/jpages/1076-9307/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.