Data and Code for JEEA: Alfaro, Cuñat, Fadinger, Liu, 2022 "The Real Exchange Rate, Innovation and Productivity"

We build a dynamic heterogeneous-firm model in which real depreciations raise export demand and the cost of importing intermediates, and also affect borrowing constraints and the profitability of engaging in R&D. A number of stylised facts on manufacturing firms for a large set of countries discipline our estimation: firms in emerging East Asia are very export oriented and rely little on imported intermediates, whereas the opposite holds for Latin America and Eastern Europe; firms from industrialized countries export as much as they import. Exporters experience an increase in cash flow, R&D, and productivity growth in response to RER depreciations; importers experience the opposite outcomes. In counterfactual simulations of temporary RER movements, the effects on innovation and productivity growth are heterogeneous across regions, sizeable and persistent. In emerging Asia, real depreciations are associated with higher probabilities to engage in R&D, faster growth of average firm-level productivity and cash-flow, and higher export entry rates; we find negative average effects on these outcomes for firms in other emerging economies, and no significant average effects for firms in industrialized economies.