The Balassa-Samuelson effect states that productivity differences between the production of tradable goods in different countries 1) explain large observed differences in wages and in the price of ...

Our special report on the world of prices wouldn't be complete without asking, and trying to answer, a big, and surprisingly complex, question: How do pricey countries get that way? Zenaide Muneton is ...

Disclaimer: This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF.The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those ...

Drawing a scatter diagram between differences in service prices and productivity among Japanese regions reveals a positive correlation. Additionally, all students of international economics know of ...

This paper examines the relevance of the Balassa-Samuelson productivity-bias hypothesis for explaining long-run permanent shocks in the real exchange rates. The sample consists of yearly data on real ...

This paper investigates how the Asian Monetary Unit (AMU) Deviation Indicators for surveillance measurements among East Asian currencies are improved by changing their benchmark rates from the ...

Long-run cross-country price data exhibit a puzzle. Today, richer countries exhibit higher price levels than poorer countries, a stylized fact usually attributed to the "Balassa-Samuelson" effect. But ...

Every month, the Bank for International Settlements calculates and publishes the real and nominal effective exchange rates for major currencies. The most recent data, released in mid-February, ...

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. I argued in my previous blog that sterling is overvalued. Objections to this usually take one of two forms. The ...

Abstract: There is surprisingly little empirical research on whether Balassa-Samuelson effects can explain the long-run behavior of real exchange rates in developing countries. This paper presents new ...