IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bos/iedwpr/dp-112.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What Can Account for Fluctuations in the Terms of Trade?

Author

Listed:
  • Marianne Baxter

    (Institute for Economic Development, Boston University)

  • Michael A. Kouparitsas

    (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago)

Abstract

This paper studies the sources of terms of trade volatility. We decompose the terms of trade into two components. The ‘goods price’ component stems from differences in the composition of import and export baskets, while the ‘country price’ component stems from deviations from the law of one price. Countries are classified according to their major import and export goods: commodities, manufactured goods and fuels. Except fuel exporters, there is roughly equal importance of goods price vs country price volatility. These results suggest that there may be a role for reducing terms of trade volatility through diversification of a country's exports.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Marianne Baxter & Michael A. Kouparitsas, 2000. "What Can Account for Fluctuations in the Terms of Trade?," Boston University - Department of Economics - The Institute for Economic Development Working Papers Series dp-112, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:bos:iedwpr:dp-112
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bu.edu/econ/ied/dp/papers/totdec20001.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg & Michael M. Knetter, 1997. "Goods Prices and Exchange Rates: What Have We Learned?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 35(3), pages 1243-1272, September.
    2. Stockman, Alan C & Tesar, Linda L, 1995. "Tastes and Technology in a Two-Country Model of the Business Cycle: Explaining International Comovements," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(1), pages 168-185, March.
    3. Hodrick, Robert J & Prescott, Edward C, 1997. "Postwar U.S. Business Cycles: An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 29(1), pages 1-16, February.
    4. repec:fth:nystbu:92-6 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Charles Engel, 1999. "Accounting for U.S. Real Exchange Rate Changes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(3), pages 507-538, June.
    6. Kim, In-Moo & Loungani, Prakash, 1992. "The role of energy in real business cycle models," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 173-189, April.
    7. Backus, David K & Kehoe, Patrick J & Kydland, Finn E, 1994. "Dynamics of the Trade Balance and the Terms of Trade: The J-Curve?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(1), pages 84-103, March.
    8. 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.
    9. Engel, Charles & Rogers, John H, 1996. "How Wide Is the Border?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(5), pages 1112-1125, December.
    10. Mendoza, Enrique G, 1995. "The Terms of Trade, the Real Exchange Rate, and Economic Fluctuations," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 36(1), pages 101-137, February.
    11. Engel, Charles, 1993. "Real exchange rates and relative prices : An empirical investigation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 35-50, August.
    12. Knetter, Michael M, 1993. "International Comparisons of Price-to-Market Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(3), pages 473-486, June.
    13. Prasad Bidarkota & Mario J. Crucini, 2000. "Commodity Prices and the Terms of Trade," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(4), pages 647-666, November.
    14. Backus, David K. & Crucini, Mario J., 2000. "Oil prices and the terms of trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 185-213, February.
    15. David K. Backus & Patrick J. Kehoe & Finn E. Kydland, 1992. "Dynamics of the trade balance and the terms of trade: the J-curve revisited," Discussion Paper / Institute for Empirical Macroeconomics 65, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    16. Michael A. Kouparitsas, 1996. "North-South business cycles," Working Paper Series, Macroeconomic Issues WP-96-9, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    Full references (including those not matched with items 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. Marianne Baxter & Michael A. Kouparitsas, 2000. "What Causes Fluctuations in the Terms of Trade?," NBER Working Papers 7462, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Jean-Olivier Hairault & Thepthida Sopraseuth, 2008. "Fluctuations internationales et dynamique du taux de change," Economie & Prévision, La Documentation Française, vol. 0(2), pages 65-91.
    3. Mario J. Crucini, 2006. "International Real Business Cycles," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 0617, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    4. V. V Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe & Ellen R. McGrattan, 2002. "Can Sticky Price Models Generate Volatile and Persistent Real Exchange Rates?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 69(3), pages 533-563.
    5. Andrés Sagner, 2010. "Implied Probability Distribution in Financial Options," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 597, Central Bank of Chile.
    6. Backus, David K. & Crucini, Mario J., 2000. "Oil prices and the terms of trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 185-213, February.
    7. Philip Hans Franses & Dick van Dijk, 2006. "A simple test for PPP among traded goods," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(1-2), pages 19-27.
    8. Ambler, Steve & Cardia, Emanuela & Zimmermann, Christian, 2002. "International transmission of the business cycle in a multi-sector model," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 273-300, February.
    9. Charles Engel, 2003. "Expenditure Switching and Exchange-Rate Policy," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2002, Volume 17, pages 231-300, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Hess, Gregory D. & Shin, Kwanho, 1998. "Intranational business cycles in the United States," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 289-313, April.
    11. Corsetti, Giancarlo & Dedola, Luca & Leduc, Sylvain, 2010. "Optimal Monetary Policy in Open Economies," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 16, pages 861-933, Elsevier.
    12. Pedro Brinca & João Ricardo Costa Filho & Francesca Loria, 2024. "Business cycle accounting: What have we learned so far?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(4), pages 1276-1316, September.
    13. Kyriacos Lambrias, 2013. "News Shocks, Real Exchange Rates and International Co-Movements," BCL working papers 83, Central Bank of Luxembourg.
    14. Giancarlo Corsetti & Luca Dedola & Sylvain Leduc, 2014. "The International Dimension Of Productivity And Demand Shocks In The Us Economy," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 153-176, February.
    15. Betts, Caroline M. & Kehoe, Timothy J., 2006. "U.S. real exchange rate fluctuations and relative price fluctuations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(7), pages 1297-1326, October.
    16. Michael Dotsey & Margarida Duarte, 2017. "How Important is the Currency Denomination of Exports in Open Economy Models?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 23, pages 1-18, January.
    17. Mario J. Crucini & Chris I. Telmer & Marios Zachariadis, 2005. "Understanding European Real Exchange Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 724-738, June.
    18. Andrew Atkeson & Ariel Burstein, 2008. "Pricing-to-Market, Trade Costs, and International Relative Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(5), pages 1998-2031, December.
    19. Burstein, Ariel & Gopinath, Gita, 2014. "International Prices and Exchange Rates," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 391-451, Elsevier.
    20. Bhattacharya, Prasad S. & Karayalcin, Cem A. & Thomakos, Dimitrios D., 2008. "Exchange rate pass-through and relative prices: An industry-level empirical investigation," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(7), pages 1135-1160, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Terms of Trade; International business cycles;

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • F41 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Open Economy Macroeconomics

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:bos:iedwpr:dp-112. 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: Program Coordinator (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/decbuus.html .

    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.