The responsiveness of consumer prices to exchange rates and the implications for exchange-rate policy

Charles Engel

"The traditional case for flexibility in nominal exchange rates assumes that there is nominal price stickiness that prevents relative prices from adjusting in response to real shocks. When prices are sticky in producers' currencies, nominal exchange rate changes can achieve the relative price change that is required between home and foreign goods. The nominal exchange rate flexibility provides the desired 'expenditure-switching' effect of relative price changes. But if prices are fixed ex ante in consumers' currencies, nominal exchange rate flexibility cannot achieve any relative price adjustment. In fact, nominal exchange rate fluctuations are undesirable because they lead to deviations from the law of one price. So, fixed exchange rates are optimal. The empirical literature appears to support the notion that prices are sticky in consumers' currencies. This paper surveys the...