OIL VOLATILITY PASS THROUGH AND REAL EXCHANGE MISALIGNMENT IN LEADING COMMODITY EXPORTING COUNTRIES

Past research has shown how real Exchange rates follow a univariate nonlinear process that approximates their behavior in terms of transaction costs. However, little or nothing has been said about alternative sources of nonlinearity in commodity exporting countries. Our paper investigates the missing link between the Real Exchange Rate Commodity Prices equilibrium by employing an oil price volatility measure as an external source of short-term fluctuations. Our estimates show that the Real Exchange Rate Commodity price relationship appears to be nonlinear with respect to oil price variation, and that the goodness of fit of the nonlinear specifications appears to outperform that of the equivalent linear models. The equilibrium speed of adjustment appears to be different in the two branches of the relationship: in the majority of the threshold models, the negative volatility regime presents a faster speed of adjustment and in some cases a most significant one.