Conditional exchange rate pass-through: evidence from Sweden

The pass-through from exchange rate changes to inflation differs depending on the underlying shock. This paper quantifies the conditional exchange rate pass-through (CERPT) to prices, i.e. the change in prices relative to that in the exchange rate following a certain exogenous shock, with a structural econometric approach using data for Sweden, a small economy that is very open to trade. We find that the pass-through to consumer prices following an exogenous exchange rate shock is rather small. Importantly, this shock is not the most important driver of exchange rate fluctuations, unlike what standard structural macroeconomic models would indicate. For Sweden, the CERPT is negative not only for domestic but also for global demand shocks. The estimated combination of shocks with positive and negative CERPT implies that the average pass-through to consumer prices is roughly zero.