Asymmetric Exchange Rate Pass-Through in Southeast Asian Rice Trade

Abstract Asian countries consume approximately 90% of the world’s rice supply. Between 2007 and 2014, Thailand, Vietnam, India accounted for 60% exports rice. A nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) econometric model is utilized to estimate impact exchange rate fluctuations on trade in Southeast Asia. Focusing largest importing exporting country by volume, analysis considers Malaysian, Indonesian, Philippines, Chinese imports from Thailand. Results show that countries’ state trading enterprises (STEs) generally do not follow profit-maximizing behavior reacting volatility.