Missing Import Price Changes and Low Exchange Rate Pass-Through

A large body of empirical work has found that exchange rate movements have only modest effects on US inflation. However, exchange rate pass-through may be underestimated because some price changes are missed when constructing price indexes. We investigate downward biases that arise when items exit or enter the US import price index. Using Bureau of Labor Statistics microdata, we find that, although potentially large in theory, the empirical biases are modest over typical forecast horizons. As such, the empirical evidence continues to support the conclusion that pass-through to US import prices is low.