Trade Balance Dynamics and Exchange Rates: In Search of the J‐Curve Using a Structural Gravity Approach

Abstract

This paper uses a structural gravity approach, specifying currency movements as trade cost component to derive an empirical trade balance model, which incorporates multilateral resistance terms and accounts for the cross-country variation in the exchange rate pass-through into import and export prices. The model is estimated using quarterly bilateral trade flows between 47 countries over the period 2010Q1-2017Q2, disaggregated into 97 commodity groups. Our results support the existence of an "aggregate" J-curve, pooled over commodity groups; at the same time they point to considerable heterogeneity in the trade balance dynamics across industries below the surface of aggregate data.