Exchange Rates, Local Currency Pricing and International Tax Policies

Download or read book Exchange Rates, Local Currency Pricing and International Tax Policies written by Sihao Chen and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Empirical evidence suggests that for many countries, retail prices of traded goods are sticky in national currencies. Movements in exchange rates then cause deviations from the law of one price, and exchange rate ëmisalignmentí, which cannot be corrected by monetary policy alone. This paper shows that a state contingent international tax policy can be combined with monetary policy to eliminate exchange rate misalignment and sustain a fully efficient welfare outcome. But this monetary-fiscal mix cannot be decentralized with non-cooperative determination of monetary and fiscal policy. Non-cooperative use of taxes and subsidies introduces strategic spillovers which opens up a fundamental conflict between the goals of output gap and inflation stabilization and those of terms of trade manipulation in an open economy. The implementation of an efficient monetary-fiscal mix requires effective cooperation in fiscal policy, while leaving monetary policy to be determined non-cooperatively. In addition, while an efficient outcome requires state contingent taxes and subsidies to eliminate exchange rate misalignment, it is still necessary to have flexible exchange rates and independent monetary policy.