Kul B. Luintel, "Real Exchange Rate Behaviour: Evidence from Black
Markets", Journal of Applied Econometrics, Vol. 15, No.  2, 2000, 
pp. 161-185. 


Two sets of data are supplied. The first set consists of the following
eight country specific ASCII data files:

(1) IND.DAT contains data on CPI and EX for India and USCPI.
(2) LNK.DAT contains data on CPI and EX for Sri Lanka and USCPI.
(3) MAL.DAT contains data on CPI and EX for Malaysia and USCPI.
(4) MNR.DAT contains data on CPI and EX for Myanmar and USCPI.
(5) PAK.DAT contains data on CPI and EX for Pakistan and USCPI.
(6) PHL.DAT contains data on CPI and EX for the Philippines and USCPI.
(7) TAW.DAt contains data on CPI and EX for Taiwan and USCPI.
(8) THI.DAT contains data on CPI and EX for Thailand and USCPI.

Definitions:

CPI = Consumer Price Index
EX = Black Market Nominal Exchange Rate, defined as units of domestic
     currency per US dollar.

USCPI = Consumer Price Index of USA.

Total Obs: 378 for all countries except Taiwan. For Taiwan 366.

Sample: 1958:1-1989:6 for all countries except Taiwan. The sample for
        Taiwan is 1859:1-1989:6

Variables: In each country file the first column is sample date,
           the second column is CPI, the third column is EX and the last
           column is USCPI.

           Note that the first three letters in variable names indicate
           country mnemonics (e.g., IND=India as shown above in *.DAT files)
           and the remaining letters signify the time series in question.
           Example:

INDCPI:    CPI for India.
INDEX:     Nominal Black Market Exchange Rates for India
INDREX:    Real Exchange Rate for India.
TAWCPI:    CPI for Taiwan, and so on....

Data Organization: Data series are organised and saved by observations.

Data Sources: Black Market Nominal Exchange Rates are obtained from various
              issues of Pick's Currency Year Book and World Currency Year
              Book. Monthly CPI series are collected from various issues of
              International Financial Statistics, IMF, and converted to base
              year 1990=100.

The second set of data is saved in REX.DAT file. Each column of time series
is real exchange rate for a specific sample country. Following eight series
are saved:

(1) INDREX = Real Exchange Rate for India
(2) LNKREX = Real Exchange Rate for Sri Lanka
(3) MALREX = Real Exchange Rate for Malaysia
(4) MNREX  = Real Exchange Rate for Myanmar
(5) PAKREX = Real Exchange Rate for Pakistan
(6) PHLREX = Real Exchange Rate for the Philippines
(7) TAWREX = Real Exchange Rate for Taiwan
(8) THIREX = Real Exchange Rate for Thailand.

Real exchange rate series are calculated using the first data set given
above. All real exchange rate series are in natural logarithms. Definition
of real exchange rate is:

rex = log(EX)-log(CPI)+log(USCPI).

Price ratio is also analyzed in the paper which is calculated as a ratio of
foreign to domestic price indices (in logs).

All nine files, which are in DOS format, are zipped in the file
kl-data.zip. Unix users should use "unzip -a" when unzipping them.