@article {16252, title = {Currency Choice and Exchange Rate Pass-through}, journal = {American Economic Review}, volume = {100}, number = {1}, year = {2010}, pages = {304-336}, abstract = {We show, using novel data on currency and prices for US imports, that even conditional on a price change, there is a large difference in the exchange rate pass-through of the average good priced in dollars (25 percent) versus nondollars (95 percent). We document this to be the case across countries and within disaggregated sectors. This finding contradicts the assumption in an important class of models that the currency of pricing is exogenous. We present a model of endogenous currency choice in a dynamic price setting environment and show that the predictions of the model are strongly supported by the data. (JEL E31, F14, F31)}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/aer.100.1.304}, author = {Gita Gopinath and Oleg Itskhoki and Roberto Rigobon} } @article {16251, title = {Frequency of Price Adjustment and Pass-through}, journal = {Quarterly Journal of Economics}, volume = {125}, number = {2}, year = {2010}, pages = {675-727}, abstract = {We empirically document using U.S. import prices that on average goods with a high frequency of price adjustment have a long-run pass-through that is at least twice as high as that of low-frequency adjusters. We show theoretically that this relationship should follow because variable mark-ups that reduce long-run pass-through also reduce the curvature of the profit function when expressed as a function of the cost shocks, making the firm less willing to adjust its price. Lastly, we quantitatively evaluate a dynamic menu-cost model and show that the variable mark-up channel can generate significant variation in frequency, equivalent to 37\% of the observed variation in the data. On the other hand the standard workhorse model with constant elasticity of demand and Calvo or state dependent pricing has difficulty matching the facts.}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/qjec.2010.125.2.675}, author = {Gita Gopinath and Oleg Itskhoki} }