Devaluation, Money, and Nontraded Goods

This paper develops a monetary approach to the theory of currency devaluation.1 The approach is "monetary" in several respects. The role of the real balance effect is emphasized and a distinction is drawn between the relative prices of goods, the exchange rate and the price of money in terms of goods. Furthermore, money is treated as a capital asset so that the expenditure effects induced by a monetary change are spread out over time and depend on the preferred rate of adjustment of real balances.2 The latter aspect gives rise to the analytical distinction between impact and long-run effects of a devaluation. The first part of this paper develops a one-commodity and two-country model of devaluation. The simplicity of that structure is chosen quite deliberately to emphasize the monetary aspect of the problem as opposed to the derivative effects that arise from induced changes in relative commodity prices. Trade is viewed as the exchange of goods for money or a means of redistributing the world supply of assets. A devaluation is shown to give rise to a change in the level of trade and the terms of trade, the price of money in terms of goods. In the second part the implications of the existence of nontraded goods are investigated, and induced changes in the relative prices of home goods enter the analysis.