When are devaluations more contractionary? A quantile VAR estimation for Argentina

This paper presents empirical evidence on the short- and medium-run contractionary effects of exchange rate shocks and currency devaluations for bimonetary (i. e., highly dollarized) countries. In particular, for Argentina for the period January 2004-December 2018. Using a VAR representation with qu...

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Autores principales: Montes Rojas, Gabriel, Bertholet, Nicolás
Formato: Artículo publishedVersion
Lenguaje:Inglés
Publicado: Instituto Interdisciplinario de Economía Política (IIEP UBA-CONICET) 2022
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Acceso en línea:https://ojs.economicas.uba.ar/DT-IIEP/article/view/2464
https://repositoriouba.sisbi.uba.ar/gsdl/cgi-bin/library.cgi?a=d&c=dociiep&d=2464_oai
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Sumario:This paper presents empirical evidence on the short- and medium-run contractionary effects of exchange rate shocks and currency devaluations for bimonetary (i. e., highly dollarized) countries. In particular, for Argentina for the period January 2004-December 2018. Using a VAR representation with quantile heterogeneity, it implements a multivariate model with four macroeconomic variables: exchange rate variations, inflation, economic activity and nominal wage growth. The empirical results show a 30% price pass-through effects and a bimodal effect on output, with both positive and negative effects. Wages adjust less than prices with the consequent effect that real wages have a negative elasticity of 0.23 with respect to exchange rate shocks. Further analysis on the multivariate responses show that the negative effect on output is associated with a decline in real wages: a 1% fall in real wages after a currency devaluation produces a 2.3% decline in output.