Domestic Price Dollarization in Emerging Economies / Andres Drenik, Diego Perez.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Drenik, Andres.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Perez, Diego.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w27647.

NBER working paper series no. w27647

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2020.

Summary:

This paper studies the dollarization of prices in retail markets of emerging economies. We develop a model of the firm's optimal currency choice in retail markets in inflationary economies. We derive theoretical predictions regarding the optimality of dollar pricing, and test them using data from the largest e-trade platform in Latin America. Across countries, price dollarization is positively correlated with asset dollarization and inflation, and negatively correlated with exchange rate volatility. At the micro level, larger sellers are more likely to price in dollars, and more tradeable goods are more likely to be posted in dollars. We then show that prices are sticky, and hence the currency of prices determines the short-run reaction of both prices and quantities to a nominal exchange rate shock.

Notes:

Print version record

August 2020.