Home

>

Has the Exchange Rate Pass-Through changed in South Africa?

This paper uses the two-stage exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) framework instead of the direct pass-through (PT) from the exchange rate to consumer inflation to assess the variation in the ERPT for South Africa from 1994 to 2014. The paper uses rolling-window estimation to examine the possibility of change in the ERPT over time. In addition, it investigates the asymmetric behaviour of the ERPT over the business cycle. The results indicate that the ERPT for South Africa is complete in the …rst stage but incomplete in the second stage. It implies that retailers do not pass all the cost to consumers. The …first-stage ERPT has declined slightly since the Global Financial Crisis. Weak domestic demand and possibly the concentration of …rms in the manufacturing sector are the main forces behind this low PT. Moreover, there is evidence of asymmetry in the …first-stage ERPT in that it tends to rise in the upturn phase of the economy compared to the downturn. The second-stage ERPT shows a considerable decline since the adoption of the in‡ation-targeting regime. Similar to the fi…rst-stage case, the PT is muted in the downturn but rises in the expansionary phase by about 10 per cent.

Working paper 649
1 November 2016
SHARE THIS Working Paper PUBLICATION:
22 November 2016
Publication Type: Working Paper
JEL Code: C51, E52, E58

Related South Africa’s Cities and Growth Spatial Challenges and Policy Interventions Content

Request for Proposals: The role of cities as drivers of growth and employment
Background Urbanization in South Africa is expected to reach 80% by...
Call for Work
South Africa’s future will be decided in our cities
Discussion Document 14 South Africa’s cities face multiple, overlap...
Dieter von Fintel, Justin Visagie, Ivan Turok, Takwanisa Machemedze, Claus Rabe, Sebastian Galiani, Edward Glaeser
Discussion Document
Monitoring South Africa’s metropolitan economies: A survey of the data landscape
Discussion Document 13 Disparities in data across different metropo...
Dieter von Fintel
Discussion Document
Cities, productivity and Jobs in SA: Problems and potential
Discussion Document 12 Cities contribute to national prosperity bec...
Ivan Turok, Justin Visagie
Discussion Document
Place-based economic policies: international lessons for South Africa
Discussion Document 11 Place-based policies are designed to support...
Harris Selod, Claus Rabe
Discussion Document
What luminosity data can and cannot reveal about South Africa’s urban economies
Discussion Document 10 As novel types of data are becoming availabl...
Takwanisa Machemedze
Discussion Document
Crime: A policy-oriented survey
Discussion Document 9 South Africa has a reputation for having high...
Sebastian Galiani
Discussion Document
Virtual CDE Workshop on SA Cities and Growth
Urban economics has provided powerful insights into how the charact...
Workshop