Discussion paper

DP9735 Exchange Rate Pass-Through to Consumer Prices in South Africa: Evidence from Micro-Data

A sizeable literature examines exchange rate pass-through to disaggregated import prices but very few micro-studies focus on consumer prices. This paper explores exchange rate pass-through to consumer prices in South Africa during 2002-2007, using a unique data set of highly disaggregated data at the product and outlet level. The paper adopts an empirical approach that allows pass-through to be calculated over various horizons, including controls for domestic and foreign costs. It studies how pass-through differs across types of consumption goods and services and draws some aggregate implications about pass-through, using actual weights from the CPI basket. The heterogeneity of pass-through for different food sub-components and the role of switches between import and export parity pricing of maize is investigated and found significant for five out of ten food sub-components. Overall pass-through to the almost 63 percent of the CPI covered is estimated at about 30 percent after two years, but is higher for food.

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Citation

Muellbauer, J, J Aron and N Rankin (2013), ‘DP9735 Exchange Rate Pass-Through to Consumer Prices in South Africa: Evidence from Micro-Data‘, CEPR Discussion Paper No. 9735. CEPR Press, Paris & London. https://cepr.org/publications/dp9735