Available online xxxx JEL classification: E22 F11 F41 F43 Keywords: Relative price of non tradables Sectoral wages Productivity growth Sectoral labor reallocation InvestmentThis paper investigates the relative price and relative wage effects of a higher productivity in the traded sector compared with the non traded sector in a two-sector open economy model with imperfect substitutability in hours worked across sectors. The Balassa-Samuelson (1964) model predicts that a rise in the sectoral productivity ratio by 1% raises the relative price of non tradables by 1% while leaving the non traded wage-traded wage ratio unchanged. Applying cointegration methods to a panel of fourteen OECD countries over the period 1970-2007, our estimates show that the relative price rises by only 0.78% and the relative wage falls by 0.27%. While our first set of empirical findings cast doubt on the quantitative predictions of the Balassa-Samuelson model, our second set of evidence highlights the role of imperfect labor mobility: the relative price responds more to a productivity differential between tradables and non tradables while the reaction of the relative wage is more muted in countries with higher intersectoral reallocation of labor. We show that the ability of the two-sector model to account for our evidence quantitatively relies upon two ingredients: i) imperfect mobility of labor across sectors, and ii) physical capital accumulation. Finally, our numerical results reveal that the model predicts the relative price response fairly well, and to a lesser extent the relative wage response.

This paper investigates the long run behavior of real exchange rates in nineteen countries of Latin America over the period 1970 -2006. Our data does not support the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) hypothesis, implying that real shocks tend to have permanent effects on Latin America's real exchange rates. By exploiting the advantage of non stationary panel econometrics, we are able to determinate factors that drive real exchanges rate in the long run : the Balassa-Samuelson effect, government spending, the terms of trade, the openness degree, foreign capital flows and the de facto nominal exchange regime. The latter effect has policy implications since we find that a fixed regime tends to appreciate the real exchange rate. This finding shows the non neutrality of exchange rate regime regarding its effects on real exchange rates. We also run estimations for country subgroups (South America versus Caribbean and Central America). Regional results highlight that several real exchange rates determinants are specific to one geographic zone. Finally, we compute equilibrium real exchange rate estimations. Two main results are derived from the investigation of misalignments, [i] eight real exchange rates are quite close to their equilibrium level in 2006, and [ii] our model shows that a part of currencies crises that arose in Latin America was preceded by a real exchange rate overvaluation.

We use a two-sector neoclassical open economy model with traded and non-traded goods and endogenous markups to investigate the effects of temporary fiscal shocks.One central finding is that theory can be reconciled with evidence once we allow for endogenous markups and assume that the traded sector is more capital intensive than the non-traded sector. More precisely, while both ingredients are essential to produce the real exchange rate depreciation, only the second ingredient is necessary to account

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