Are shocks to the terms of trade shocks to productivity?
By: Timothy J. Kehoe, Kim J. Ruhl.
Contributors: Ruhl, Kim J.; National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series -- no. 13111.; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research) -- working paper no. 13111.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 27
Subjects: Terms of trade; Industrial productivity -- Econometric models; International trade
Description: International trade is frequently thought of as a production technology in which the inputs are exports and the outputs are imports. Exports are transformed into imports at the rate of the price of exports relative to the price of imports: the reciprocal of the terms of trade. Cast this way, a change in the terms of trade acts as a productivity shock. Or does it? In this paper, we show that this line of reasoning cannot work in standard models. Starting with a simple model and then generalizing, we show that changes in the terms of trade have no first-order effect on productivity when output is measured as chain-weighted real gross domestic product. The terms of trade do affect real income and consumption in a country, and we show how measures of real income change with the terms of trade at business cycle frequencies and during financial crises.
Notes: "May 2007"

Includes bibliographical references (p. 21-22).

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