Exchange Rate Volatility and Foreign Trade: The Case for Cyprus and Croatia

This paper examines the effect of exchange rate volatility for a set of two countries, Croatia and Cyprus on sectoral exports during the period of 1990: q1-2012:q1. It is claimed by some researchers that exchange rate volatility causes a reduction on the overall level of trade. Empirical researchers often utilize the standard deviation of the moving average of the logarithm of the exchange rate as a measure of exchange rate fluctuation. In this study we propose a new measure for volatility. Overall our results have suggested significant negative effects from volatility on exports for one country in our sample.