Topic: Exchange Rate, Product Quality and Export Price

Keynote Speaker: Wang Yaqi, Lecturer of School of Finance, Central University of Finance and Economics. She acquired PhD in Economics degree from China Center for Economic Research, Peking University in 2015. She graduated from Wuhan University with the degree of economic and applied mathematics. Her main research areas cover exchange rate, product pricing and firm heterogeneity. The research outcomes were published in many domestic academic journals like World Economics, Finance Research, etc. And she took part in many international academic conferences.

Time & Date: 2:00-3:30 p.m., Oct. 24th 2015

Address: Room 913, Main Building of Central University of Finance and Economics.

Moderator: Gou Qin, Lecturer of School of Finance, Central University of Finance and Economics.

Abstract：We analyze the response of export prices to exchange rate changes using highly disaggregated firm-product level trade data from China during 2000-2006. We find on average a low response of export prices to exchange rates changes. However, the response is larger for exports to high-income countries. We rationale these findings with the heterogeneous response of export prices to exchange rates for varieties with different quality. An increase of quality by one standard deviation increases the elasticity of export price to exchange rates by 5.85 percentage points. This conclusion is robust to different measures of quality, samples and specifications. Compared with other dimensions such as productivity and import intensity, product quality explains a larger proportion of the total variations of export price responses to exchange rates.