Since the conditions necessary for complete pass-through, such as perfect competition and the absence of any trade barriers or other economic frictions, were unlikely to be satisfied, something between these two extremes was anticipated. In practice, researchers found that, for most countries, the pass-through coefficient was extremely small. This was especially true in the short run, since prices take time to adjust.
Imported products, and the domestic goods and services that compete with them, were usually found to be more sensitive to exchange rate movements. For this reason, one would expect to see a stronger relationship when looking at import prices alone as opposed to the entire CPI. Even here, however, the evidence was often relatively weak. There are a number of possible explanations for this.