Real Exchange Rate Misalignment in Developing Economies: An Application of Panel Smooth Transition Regression

Real exchange rate misalignment from its equilibrium level can have negative effect on economies worldwide, especially on developing countries. For this reason, it is important to economic policymakers to make attempts in order to control for any misalignment. As detection of the real exchange rate is a first step to control for its misalignments, this study has explored the effects of the main determinants on real exchange rate within a framework of a non-linear model using data of 120 developing countries over the period 2000-2019. The model, which was specified as a panel smooth transition regression, contained a set of explanatory variables such as productivity index, the ratio of investment to GDP, the ratio of government spending to GDP, trade openness, term of trade and net foreign assets. The empirical results indicated that changes in all aforementioned explanatory variables affected significantly the countries` exchange rates. In addition, the results revealed that existence of various types of exchange rate misalignments, like over/under- valuation of exchange rate, in most countries during the period, even those the intensity of misalignments were different in the countries under consideration. Among them, Iran experienced the vast fluctuations in the real exchange rate by 2002, while the less deviation from the equilibrium rate happened in the rest of the period. The reason for such misalignment has been typically based on the overvaluation and undervaluation of the domestic currency.