Exchange Rates and Prices: Evidence from the 2015 Swiss Franc Appreciation

We dissect the impact of a large and sudden exchange rate appreciation on Swiss border import prices, retail prices, and consumer expenditures on domestic and imported nondurable goods, following the removal of the EUR/CHF floor in January 2015. Cross-sectional variation in border price changes by currency of invoicing carries over to consumer prices and allocations, impacting retail prices of imports and competing domestic goods, as well as import expenditures. We provide measures of the sensitivity of retail import prices to border prices and the sensitivity of import shares to relative prices, which is higher when using retail prices than border prices. (JEL E21, E31, F14, F31, L11)

Exports and Invoicing: Evidence from the 2015 Swiss Franc Appreciation

Do differences in border price adjustment by currency of invoicing carry over to allocations? We document the cross-industry variation in the response of Swiss export prices and export values by currency of invoicing of border prices in the aftermath of the large and abrupt Swiss franc (CHF) appreciation in January 2015. Industries with higher CHF-invoicing shares (and a larger increase in foreign-currency denominated prices) experienced substantially weaker export growth in the two-year period after January 2015.

International Prices, Costs, and Markup Differences

Relative cross-border retail prices, in a common currency, comove closely with the nominal exchange rate. Using product-level prices and wholesale costs from a grocery chain operating in the United States and Canada, we decompose this variation into relative costs and markup components. The high correlation of nominal and real exchange rates is driven mainly by changes in relative costs. National borders segment markets. Retail prices respond to changes in costs in neighboring stores within the same country but not across the border. Prices have a median discontinuous change of 24 percent at the border and 0 percent at state boundaries. (JEL F31, L11, L81)