Are The Real Exchange Rate Indices of Australia Non-Stationary in the Presence of Structural Break?

This paper examines the time series properties of real exchange rate indices of Australia in the presence of structural break. Traditional unit root procedures have low power when structural break is ignored. By including structural change in the data, Perron’s (1997) Additive Outlier model was found optimal. Three indices (Trade-weighted index (TWI), Export-weighted index (EWI) and Import-weighted index (IWI) are found to be stationary while G7 GDP-weighted index (G7WI) was found non-stationary. The estimated break dates correspond to the period of huge real GDP downturn in Australia (early 1990s), and the global recession in the early 1980s affecting the G7 countries.