Rationale behind the responses of monetary policy to the real exchange rate in small open economies

We estimate how monetary policy works in small open economies. To do so, we build a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model that incorporates the basic features of these economies. We conclude that the monetary policy in a group of small open economies (including Australia, Chile, Colombia, Peru and New Zealand) is rather similar to that observed in developed countries. Nevertheless, our results also indicate that there are strong differences due to shocks from the international financial markets (risk premium shocks, mainly) that explain mostly the variability of the real exchange rate, which has important reallocation effects in the short run. In addition, we find that in practice central banks do not face any trade-off responding to these shocks through changes in the interest rate. This result is consistent with the fact that in each country under study, the exchange rate must be included in the policy reaction function.