This paper quantifies the relative importance of the different channels of CPI responsiveness to exchange rates and import prices across 21 industrialized economies. The paper provides new and rich cross-country and cross-industry details on the sensitivity to exchange rates of distribution margins; the extent of imported inputs use in different categories of consumption goods; and on their role in consumption of nontradables, home-produced tradables, and imported goods. The dominant channel for CPI sensitivity is through the costs arising from imported input use in goods production. This channel is more important than changes in prices of imported goods directly consumed.

We provide cross-country and time series evidence on the extent of exchange rate pass-through into the import prices of 23 OECD countries. We find compelling evidence of partial pass-through in the short run, especially within manufacturing industries. Over the long run, producer-currency pricing is more prevalent for many types of imported goods. Countries with higher rates of exchange rate volatility have higher pass-through elasticities, although macroeconomic variables have played a minor role in the evolution of pass-through elasticities over time. Far more important for pass-through changes in these countries have been the dramatic shifts in the composition of country import bundles.

Using two decades of annual data, we explore the links between real exchange rates and employment, wages, and overtime activity in U.S. manufacturing industries. Especially in industries with lower price-over-cost markups, exchange rates have statistically significant effects on industry wages, with the magnitude of these effects rising as industries increase their export orientation and declining as imported input use becomes more important. Exchange rate implications for jobs and hours worked are smaller and less precisely measured. We find a much higher response of overtime wages and overtime hours to transitory exchange rates movements.