Fixed exchange rates and trade [An article from: Journal of International Economics]

This digital document is a journal article from Journal of International Economics, published by Elsevier in 2006. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
A classic argument for a fixed exchange rate is its promotion of trade. Empirical support for this, however, is mixed. While one branch of research consistently shows a small negative effect of exchange rate volatility on trade, another, more recent, branch presents evidence of a large positive impact of currency unions on trade. This paper helps resolve this disconnect. Our results, which use a new data-based classification of fixed exchange rate regimes, show a large, significant effect of a fixed exchange rate on bilateral trade between a base country and a country that pegs to it. These results suggest an economically relevant role for exchange rate regimes in trade determination since a significant amount of world trade is conducted between countries with fixed exchange rates.