Currency of denomination and the measurement of export instability

The widespread and unexpected absence of statistically significant relationships in analyses of the causes and consequences of export instability has generated attempts to refine measurement of variable sets. Recently it has been suggested that country rankings are sensitive to the choice of currency numeraire. This article investigates the significance of the choice of numeraire for a sample of 66 developing countries. The results suggest that the conventional approach of denominating export earnings in terms of US dollars is not seriously deficient and that the selection of an appropriate form of trend correction remains an important consideration