Time: Dec.10(Fri.), 13:30 – 15:00

Title: Price Setting over Online Borders: E-commerce Trades and Exchange Rate Pass-through

Venue: Room 106, Zhonghui Building

About the speaker:

贾盾，北京大学汇丰商学院助理教授，马里兰大学经济学博士。研究领域包括宏观经济学、宏观金融、量化模型算法和中国经济，当前研究工作关注量化宏观模型的微观基础（企业定价和厂商动态）以及不完备信息于货币政策传导和宏观金融领域的相关应用。当前已于American Economic Review、《金融研究》等国际国内顶级期刊发表论文（含接受）多篇，另有多篇文章返修，同时主持一项国家自然科学基金。 

Abstract:

This paper exploits the transaction-level data of a leading U.S. online marketplace capturing cross-border E-commerce trades. We find that the exchange rate pass-through into the online U.S. import prices is large and a maximum pass-through of 70% can be achieved within 6 months on average. Our findings contrast with the existing evidence using the traditional customs data suggesting limited pass-through. We rationalize these facts by introducing search frictions and endogenous customer base in a heterogenous firm model to generate variable markups for goods pricing. Our model highlights the channel that online sellers face much tighter buyer side for successful match. With trivial stock of customer base and limited market shares, online goods prices exhibit larger sensitivities to cost shocks driven by exchange rate changes. Our results suggest that the U.S. dollar prices become increasingly sensitive to exchange rate fluctuations as more trades would be settled over the online borders.