Pass-through and exposure

Firms differ in the extent to which they "pass through" changes in exchange rates into foreign currency prices and in their "exposure" to exchange rates-the responsiveness of their profits to changes in exchange rates. Because pricing affects profitability, a firm's pass-through and exposure should be related. This paper develops models of exporting firms under imperfect competition to study these related phenomena. From these models we derive the optimal pass-through decisions and the resulting exchange rate exposure. The models are estimated on eight Japanese export industries using both the price data pass-through and financial data for exposure.