Asymmetric impact of exchange rate pass-through into employees' wages in sub-Saharan Africa: panel non-linear threshold estimation

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (7) ◽  
pp. 1629-1647
Author(s):  
Idris Abdullahi Abdulqadir ◽  
Soo Y. Chua
Keyword(s):  
Exchange Rate ◽  
Threshold Value ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Threshold Regression ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Non Linear ◽  
Marginal Propensity ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Pass Through ◽  
Exchange Rate Pass Through

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to investigate the asymmetric impact of exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) on employees' wages via consumer prices in 15 major oil-exporting countries from sub-Saharan Africa over the period 1996-2017 using the panel threshold regression model.Design/methodology/approachThe methodology used in this article was built on non-linear panel threshold regression models developed by Hansen (1996, 1999) threshold regression. The authors first tested for the existence of threshold-effect in ERPT and wage nexus using 1,000 bootstrap replications and 400 grid searches to obtain an optimal threshold. We also estimated that asymmetric ERPT on employees' wages reacts differently when the inflation-threshold exceeds beyond a 15.12% threshold level.FindingsOur findings showed that asymmetric ERPT is incomplete and indicates that an increase by one standard deviation in real exchange rate causes a decline in employees' wages by 2.69%.Research limitations/implicationsThe policy implications of our results are drawn from the significant threshold estimates. However, a significant threshold value of 15.12 is an inflation-threshold estimates that split our 330 observations into the lower (upper) regimes. Further, an inflation rate beyond the threshold value is likely to have an asymmetric ERPT on employees' wages in the 15 major oil-exporting sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries.Practical implicationsThe practical implication of the study is when ERPT exceeds the threshold, the effect of real exchange rate variations is passed on to employees' wages. It is widely believed that labor productivity increase with increased minimum wages. Nevertheless, there is contention as regards the effects on employment and poverty. As rising goods prices make the minimum wage increased homogeneous of degree zero.Social implicationsConsiderable increased ERPT on imported goods reduces employees' wages purchasing ability from import-dependent countries through import prices. Once it has documented, this also reduces welfare via deteriorations of marginal propensity to consume (MPC) and marginal propensity to savings (MPS).Originality/valueThis article integrates labor purchasing power into the analysis of ERPT using non-linear dynamic panel heterogeneous threshold regression. It extends the Hansen (1996, 1999) dynamic panel threshold models to exchange rate pass-through in SSA economies.

scholarly journals Exchange rate pass-through to inflation in Egypt: a structural VAR approach

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 2-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Omneia Helmy ◽  
Mona Fayed ◽  
Kholoud Hussien
Keyword(s):  
Exchange Rate ◽  
Price Index ◽  
Structural Var ◽  
Empirical Literature ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Exchange Rate ◽  
Exchange Rate Shocks ◽  
Pass Through ◽  
Exchange Rate Pass Through ◽  
The Impact

Purpose The theoretical and empirical literature stipulated that exchange rate shocks do influence the domestic price of imports. Hence, this paper aims to investigate the underlying relationship between the exchange rate and prices known as the exchange rate pass-through. Design/methodology/approach The paper uses a structural vector auto-regression (SVAR) model, drawing on Bernanke (1986) and Sims (1986), to empirically examine and analyze the pass-through of exchange rate fluctuations to domestic prices in Egypt. Findings The empirical results of the monthly data between 2003 and 2015 revealed that the exchange rate pass-through in Egypt is fairly substantial but incomplete and slow in the three price indices [IMP, producer price index and consumer price index (CPI)]. However, the impact is more prominent for consumer prices than for any other price index. This finding could be attributed to the fact that the CPI in Egypt is composed of a relatively large number of subsidized commodities and goods with administered prices as well as the authorities’ behavior in manipulating prices (i.e. export ban). This is expected to weaken the transmission of exchange rate shocks. Practical implications The result has interesting implications for Egypt’s ability to attain an effective inflation targeting regime. Originality/value The study contributes to the literature by assessing the effect of changes in the exchange rate (the Egyptian £ vis-à-vis the US$) on prices using an updated time series from 2003 to 2015. It addresses the limitations of the study of Nafie et al. (2004), which found no strong relationship between the exchange rate and inflation rate in the Egyptian context. One of these limitations was using the CPI, as the only price index.

Understanding the exchange rate pass-through to consumer prices in Vietnam: the SVAR approach

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 971-989 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anh The Vo ◽  
Chi Minh Ho ◽  
Duc Hong Vo
Keyword(s):  
Exchange Rate ◽  
Economic Integration ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Global Market ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Consumer Prices ◽  
The Exchange Rate ◽  
Pass Through ◽  
Exchange Rate Pass Through ◽  
The Impact

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the degree of the exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) to the consumer price index (CPI) at both aggregated and disaggregated levels in Vietnam. Updated data of the nominal effective exchange rate (NEER) and bilateral exchange rate (BiER) have been utilized in this study for the comparison purposes. Design/methodology/approach Advanced time-series approaches such as a structural vector autoregressive framework, structural impulse response functions (SIRFs), and structural forecast-error variance decomposition (SFEVD) are utilized in this paper. Findings Empirical findings from this paper present an incomplete degree of the ERPT to the aggregated CPI. The ERPT based on the BiER is observed to have substantially larger magnitude than the NEER-based pass-through. For the disaggregated level, the degree of the ERPT varies considerably across sub-components of the CPI, with a higher magnitude of the ERPT elasticity being found from the BiER estimations. The index of housing and construction materials has the largest ERPT based on the BiER, followed by the food and foodstuffs (1.00 and 0.56, respectively). The macroeconomic and financial environments as well as an economic integration into the global market may be the main causes of a higher ERPT in Vietnam in comparison with other ASEAN countries. Research limitations/implications The significant and incomplete pass-through of the exchange rate in Vietnam can affect firms’ and households’ budget planning, savings and profits. This finding generally implies that the cost of devaluation of the domestic currency affects the society as the whole in terms of welfare. The State Bank of Vietnam should carefully consider the overall effect of welfares when formulating and implementing strategies of currency devaluation. In addition, the Vietnamese economy becomes more sensitive to external vulnerabilities via changes of the exchange rate during an increasingly economic integration into the global market. In order to maintain inflation stability, it is vitally important to reduce the impact of exchange rate movements on the domestic prices, both aggregated and disaggregated levels, by pursuing either monetary policy credibility or inflation targeting. Originality/value Previous studies on the ERPT literature in the Asia region or for emerging countries focus mainly on the aggregated data of the CPI. Previous studies were conducted before the global financial crisis in 2008/2009. The current paper is the first of its kind to examine the pass-through from exchange rates to consumer prices in Vietnam using both aggregated and disaggregated data.

scholarly journals Asymmetry in Exchange Rate Pass-Through to Consumer Prices: New Perspective from Sub-Saharan African Countries

Economies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
Diby François Kassi ◽  
Dilesha Nawadali Rathnayake ◽  
Akadje Jean Roland Edjoukou ◽  
Yobouet Thierry Gnangoin ◽  
Pierre Axel Louembe ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Exchange Rate ◽  
Exchange Rate Regimes ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Franc Zone ◽  
Consumer Prices ◽  
Cfa Franc Zone ◽  
The Exchange Rate ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Pass Through ◽  
Exchange Rate Pass Through

This paper examines the asymmetrical relationship between exchange rate and consumer prices in 40 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries from 1990Q1 to 2017Q4. We estimate the exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) to consumer prices for each country by using the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) framework and dynamic panel techniques robust to cross-sectional dependence. First, our findings suggest an asymmetrical ERPT in the SSA region during the short term, whereas there are mixed results across subregions in the long term. Second, the results of the panel analysis suggest incomplete and significant ERPT to consumer prices in the entire SSA region, which is higher during depreciation of the local currency than after appreciation in the short-term, especially in the CFA Franc zone. Third, we find nonlinear ERPT with respect to the size of the exchange rate. Finally, we find that pass-through is higher in countries with fixed exchange rate regimes (CFA franc zone) in a low inflationary environment than in countries with floating exchange rate regimes and high inflation levels. Pass-through is greater during large exchange rate changes than after small changes. Therefore, the policy implication is to consider these asymmetries and nonlinearities to improve monetary policy’s credibility, enhance trade liberalization, and promote competitive market structures in the SSA region.

Exchange rate pass-through to consumer prices in Ghana: is there asymmetry?

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 162-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lordina Amoah ◽  
Meshach Jesse Aziakpono
Keyword(s):  
Exchange Rate ◽  
Policy Action ◽  
Import Prices ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Consumer Prices ◽  
Pass Through ◽  
Exchange Rate Changes ◽  
Exchange Rate Pass Through ◽  
The Impact

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to reexamine the speed and magnitude of exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) to consumer prices in Ghana. Design/methodology/approach The Johansen Maximum Likelihood approach is employed in the estimation of different models of symmetric and asymmetric ERPT. Specifically asymmetric ERPT models with respect to the direction and size of exchange rate changes are estimated. Findings Results reveal that even though a depreciation in the nominal effective exchange rate will lead to an increase of consumer prices in the long-run, it is not statistically significant. Evidence also suggests a significant asymmetry with respect to direction and size of exchange rate changes. This indicates that the right ERPT model is an asymmetric model. Specifically ERPT is found to be incomplete but relatively higher in periods of depreciation than in periods of appreciation; that is 53 percent against 3 percent. ERPT is also higher during episodes of large changes (about 51 percent). Research limitations/implications It would have been interesting to analyze the impact on consumer prices through changes in import prices. That approach was not adopted due to lack of consistent data on import prices in Ghana. Practical implications It is imperative that the monetary authorities critically monitor exchange rate movements in order to be able to take swift policy action so as to counteract any inflationary pressures from the external sector. In particular, much attention should be paid to events and arrangements that could result in large depreciation of the exchange rate. Originality/value While previous studies have assumed a symmetric ERPT model for Ghana, this paper is unique in that it investigates the most appropriate model for examining ERPT in Ghana whether symmetric or an asymmetric.

scholarly journals Non-Linear Exchange Rate Pass-Through in Emerging Markets

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesca Caselli ◽  
Agustin Roitman ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Exchange Rate ◽  
Emerging Markets ◽  
Non Linear ◽  
Pass Through ◽  
Exchange Rate Pass Through ◽  
Linear Exchange

scholarly journals Asymmetry in Exchange Rate Pass-Through to Consumer Prices: New Perspective from Sub-Saharan African Countries

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diby Francois Kassi ◽  
Gang Sun ◽  
Ding Ning ◽  
Akadje Jean Roland Edjoukou ◽  
Yobouet Thierry Gnangoin
Keyword(s):  
Exchange Rate ◽  
Exchange Rate Regime ◽  
Correlated Errors ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Consumer Prices ◽  
The Exchange Rate ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Pass Through ◽  
Exchange Rate Pass Through ◽  
Ssa Countries

This paper examines the asymmetrical relationship between exchange rate and consumer prices in 40 Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries from 1990q1 to 2017q4. The exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) to consumer prices is estimated for each country by using the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lags (NARDL) framework and dynamic panel estimators robust to cross-sectionally correlated errors. Firstly, our findings suggest an asymmetrical ERPT in the SSA region during the short-term, whereas there are mixed results across sub-regions in the long-term. Next, we find incomplete and significant ERPT to consumer prices in the entire SSA region which is higher during the depreciation of the local currency than after appreciations. Third, we find nonlinear ERPT with respect to the size of the exchange rate. The pass-through is higher during large exchange rate changes than after small changes.  Finally, we find that the pass-through is greater in the countries with fixed exchange rate regime (CFA franc zone) having low inflationary environment than in the other SSA countries with flexible exchange rate regime and high inflation levels. As a result, policymakers should take into account these asymmetries and non-linearities to improve the credibility of monetary policy, strengthen trade liberalization and establish competitive market structures in the Sub-Saharan region.

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