“It's Not You, It's Me”: Prices, Quality, and Switching in U.S.-China Trade Relationships

Costs from switching suppliers can affect prices by discouraging buyer movements from high- to low-cost sellers. This paper uses confidential data on U.S. importers and their Chinese exporters to investigate these costs. I find barriers to supplier adjustments: nearly half of importers keep their partner over time. Importers switch less if their supplier has higher quality or provides lower prices. I propose and structurally estimate a dynamic discrete choice model to compute switching costs. Cost estimates are large, heterogeneous across products, and matter for trade prices: halving switching costs reduces the U.S.-China Import Price Index by 7.6%.

The Analysis of Exchange Rate Pass-Through in Indonesia

The aims of this research are to identify and analyze the exchange rate pass through towards domestic price in Indonesia. The aforementioned objective is reflected through the short-term and long-term influence variable, inflation fluctuation response due to other macroeconomic shock variable, which then reveals the characteristics of pass-through degree in Indonesia. The data used on this research was the quarter time series data from 1997 Q3 until 2017Q4. The variable used in this research were Consumer Price Index, Rupiah exchange value per Dollar, Import Price Index and SBI Interest Rate. The resource of the data variable were from Bank Indonesia and International Monetary Fund (IMF). The method being employed was Vector Error Correction Model (VECM). The result of the research shows that in the long-term and short-term period, all variable influences inflation by a different lag. Moreover, the impulse response function assessment reveals that shock variable of import price index receives a positive response by consumer price index. The result of variance decomposition assessment also concludes that the import price index has the biggest contribution.

Analysis of Exchange Rate Pass-Through in Indonesia With VECM Approach

The purpose of this research is to determine and analyze the degree of pass-through in Indonesia, which calculated from the cumulative response of the exchange rate to the CPI and the exchange rate on the exchange rate it self. Data used in this research is quarterly from 1997Q3 to 2017Q4. The variables used in this research are consumer price, rupiah to dollar exchange rate, producer price index, import price index, SBI interest rates, US wholesale price index. Data has sourced by Bank Of Indonesia and International Monetary Fund. The method used in this research is Vector Error Correction Model (VECM). The results showed that in the long-term exchange rate, producer price index, import price index, US wholesale price index had a positive effect on CPI while SBI interest rates had a negative effect to the consumer price. The impulse response function test states that in the first quarter only the variable itself was responded by the CPI, the second quarter import price index at the most by 1.2% was able to respond to the CPI. The results of the pass-through degree in Indonesia show that producer price is 0.009 and consumer price is -0.002. The result of variance decomposition shows that the import price index has the largest contribution in influencing the consumer price index. Have to reduce imports of raw materials for self-consumption, but have to import for re-export, so that domestic prices in Indonesia are stable. Tujuan penelitian ini untuk mengetahui dan menganalisis derajat pass-through di Indonesia yang dihitung dari kumulasi respon kurs terhadap IHK dan kurs terhadap kurs. Data yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah data time series triwulan dari tahun 1997Q3 hingga 2017Q4.Variabel yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini antara lain indeks harga konsumen, nilai tukar rupiah per dolar, indeks harga produsen, indeks harga impor, suku bunga SBI, indeks harga perdagangan besar AS. Metode yang digunakan adalah Vector Error Correction model (VECM). Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa pada jangka panjang variabel nilai tukar,indeks harga produsen, indeks harga impor, indeks harga perdagangan besar AS berpengaruh positif terhadap IHK sedangkan suku bunga SBI berpengaruh negatif terhadap IHK. Hasil uji impulse response function menyatakan bahwa pada kuartal pertama hanya variabel itu sendiri yang direspon oleh IHK, kuartal kedua indeks harga impor paling besar sebesar 1.2% mampu direspon IHK. Hasil derajat pass-through indeks harga produsen sebesar 0.009 dan indeks harga konsumen sebesar -0.002. Hasil variance decomposition menunjukkan bahwa indeks harga impor mempunyai kontribusi terbesar dalam mempengaruhi indeks harga konsumen. Perlu mengurangi impor bahan baku untuk konsumsi sendiri, namun mengimpor untuk diekspor kembali supaya tingkat harga domestik di Indonesia stabil.

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF BRAZIL’S FOREIGN TRADE SERIES, 1821-1913

To date, research on the economic history of Brazil during the 19th century has relied on official foreign trade statistics, the accuracy of which has repeatedly been put into question. This paper provides insights into the accuracy of the official series by examining the accuracy of the export and import series for Brazil during the 19th century. We re-estimate the official import series using trading partner sources, and find that the official series was marginally under-valued during certain periods of the 19th century. Furthermore, we provide new upper- and lower-bound estimates of the export series by testing different assumptions regarding the size of the cost, insurance and freight to free on board factor adjustments. Finally, we introduce a new import price index for the period 1827-1913.

Missing Import Price Changes and Low Exchange Rate Pass-Through

A large body of empirical work has found that exchange rate movements have only modest effects on US inflation. However, exchange rate pass-through may be underestimated because some price changes are missed when constructing price indexes. We investigate downward biases that arise when items exit or enter the US import price index. Using Bureau of Labor Statistics microdata, we find that, although potentially large in theory, the empirical biases are modest over typical forecast horizons. As such, the empirical evidence continues to support the conclusion that pass-through to US import prices is low. (JEL C43, E31, E52, F31)