Research

This paper studies the drivers of the US real exchange rate (RER), with a particular focus on its comovement with net trade flows. We consider the entire spectrum of frequencies, as the low-frequency movements account for 61% of the RER's unconditional variance. We introduce a model with heterogeneous firms facing sunk costs of exporting, financial shocks, and trade shocks. The model can fully capture the comovement of the RER and net trade flows at all frequencies, without compromising other major moments at the business cycle frequency. While financial shocks are necessary to capture the RER movements at higher frequencies, trade shocks are essential for lower frequency variation.