Monetary Shocks and Real Exchange Rates in Sticky Price Models of International Business Cycles

The data show large and persistent deviations of real exchange rates from purchasing power parity. Recent work has shown that to a large extent these movements are driven by deviations from the law of one price for traded goods. In the data, real and nominal exchange rates are about 6 times as volatile as relative price levels and they both are highly persistent, with serial correlations of 0.85 and 0.83, respectively. This paper develops a sticky price model with price discriminating monopolists, which produces deviations from the law of one price for traded goods. Our benchmark model, which has prices set for one quarter at a time and a unit consumption elasticity of money demand, does not come close to reproducing these observations. A model which has producers setting prices for 6 quarters at a time and a consumption elasticity of money demand of 0.27 does much better. In it real and nominal exchange rates are about 3 times as volatile as relative price levels and exchange rates are persistent, with serial correlations of 0.65 and 0.66, respectively.