Income Inequality and the Real Exchange Rate: Linkages and Evidence *

A simple model with non-homothetic preferences and purchasing-power parity for tradables shows that improved income inequality decreases the price of nontradables, resulting in a real depreciation. This hypothesized negative association between income inequality and the real exchange rate has robust empirical support from random- and fixed-effects models, dynamic panel estimations, and panel vector autoregressions. Thus, policies that improve a country's income distribution, by leading to a depreciation of the real exchange rate, may improve the competitiveness of its goods. However, this income inequality-real exchange rate relationship does not imply that dramatic redistributive policies will automatically bring about a real depreciation of the domestic currency.