The US current account deficit: A fundamentally flawed development?

The American current account deficit has once more become the subject of public debate. The size of the deficit is seen by some observers as the main cause of the recent decline in the exchange rate of the dollar. Can the latter be taken as confirmation of the increasing warnings that, in view of the dependence of the US economy on capital imports, adjustment processes such as a dramatic slump in the dollar exchange rate are imminent? What fundamental developments lie behind the US current account deficit, and do they give cause for significant adjustment reactions?     

Those Current Account Imbalances: A Sceptical View1

The international current account imbalances, where the United States has a vast deficit, and several countries, notably Japan, China, Germany and the oil exporters have corresponding surpluses, are usually seen as problems. The argument here is that current account imbalances simply indicate intertemporal trade – the exchange of goods and services for claims. There are likely to be gains from trade of that kind as from ordinary trade. What, then, are the problems? This paper considers five scenarios, notably one where net savings of the surplus countries decline so that the world real interest rate rises, and another where the US fiscal deficit is reduced, so that the world real interest rate falls and there could be a worldwide aggregate demand problem, essentially caused by the high net savings of the surplus countries. The paper reviews the reasons for the large surpluses in terms of savings and investment ratios (especially China) and also discusses the long‐term problem for the United States. While four of the scenarios involve a decline in the dollar, they do not necessarily imply a sudden – and even ‘disruptive’– dollar crisis.     

美元霸权兴衰与逻辑演进

本文首先回顾了美元与国际货币的演化进程,诠释了美元霸权地位形成的路径,分析了美元作为经济武器能收割世界财富的缘由。其次,揭示了布雷顿森林体系解体后,美元仍然能收割世界财富的原因,说明了美国贸易逆差的实质。再次,分析了本次新冠疫情之后,美元霸权的延续可能会出现的一些颠覆性变化,以及美元作为主导货币地位的变化。最后,分析了国际货币体系未来会出现的几种情境,以及人民币在这一历史变局中的前景,并提出了中国在长周期应该采取的应对之策。     

The US Dollar and the Euro as International Currencies

For many decades the US dollar has remained unchallenged as the world’s dominant international currency. What is behind its persistent pre-eminence in the international monetary system and can this be expected to last? Could the euro rival or even surpass the dollar as the leading currency? If it did, what would be the consequences for Euroland?      

巨额贸易逆差下美国经济增长模式及对中国经济的影响

自20世纪90年代以来,美国在巨额贸易逆差下实行了经济持续增长。本文从金融角度详细分析了美国依据美元特殊的国际货币地位和外汇储备特征实行对全球的金融剥削;从产业角度探讨了新一轮全球产业分工重组背景下制造产业的国际转移、跨国公司内部贸易、美国独特的进口商品结构、油价上涨和美国能源产业政策对“悖论”解释的合理性;从宏观政策角度解析了美国“双赤字”并存的必然原因。本文认为,美元地位的不断下降使美国经济增长模式存在潜在危机,而美国对内外经济失衡的调整,势必对中美贸易、人民币汇率、中国外汇储备及内外经济平衡产生深远的影响。     

金融危机时期的美元走势

美元是美国实力和地位的标志。美元霸权的根本在于支撑美国的全球霸权。美元指数在2007年中延续了2001年以来的下跌走势．在受美国经济衰退及次贷危机影响下，再度深幅下跌。随着美国华尔街金融危机的不断深化．美元跌势依旧，以美元为本位的国际货币金融体系正在遭受布雷顿森林体系崩溃以后最严峻的一场考验。尽管如此，美元霸权地位在短期内还不会终结。     

美元特权对美国贸易逆差的影响探析

美元特权的形成使贸易逆差成为输出美元的主要途径,并对贸易逆差起到了助长作用,集中表现在美元特权使美国维持着巨额贸易逆差而不受外汇储备短缺的制约和金融危机的威胁,却使其他追求美元储备的国家依靠贸易顺差和过度储蓄来摆脱不利处境,从而从供给和需求两个方面推动了美国贸易逆差的持续扩大。但贸易逆差的继续发展和未来的调整势必会影响美元特权地位的巩固,使世界经济特别是发展中国家的国际经济活动面临极大的风险。     

国际贸易对中外双向投资影响的实证分析

改革开放以来尤其是我国加入世贸以来,我国国际贸易额大幅上升,与此同时,流入我国的外商直接投资和我国的对外直接投资同时迅猛地增长。那么国际贸易和双向投资之间是否存在着某种必然的相关性呢?运用计量经济学的方法对我国国际贸易额与我国双向FDI的总量关系进行实证分析,得出结论,国际贸易对我国双向FDI起着促进作用,其中,对外商直接投资促进作用较大(在99%显著水平下,每产生一亿美元的进口就会流入0.303亿美元的FDI,每产生一亿美元的出口就会流入0.208亿美元的FDI),对对外直接投资影响较小(在99%显著水平下,每产生一亿美元的贸易仅对对外投资0.003 203亿美元)。并由此提出了一些建设性的意见。     

美元周期性波动对我国跨境资本流动的非对称效应研究

有效应对和防范跨境资本流动冲击，维护外汇市场稳定是贯彻落实习总书记“打好防范化解重大风险攻坚战”的重要举措。目前，美元已进入强周期，我国正面临着由强势美元引发的货币贬值、资本外流等风险，当前背景下研究美元周期性波动特征、区制划分及其对跨境资本流动的影响具有重要的理论和现实意义。本文基于2006年10月至2018年6月的月度数据，运用理论模型和MSVAR模型分析美元周期性波动对我国跨境资本流动的非对称效应。研究表明，中美利差对跨境资本流动的影响存在非对称效应，当投资者不存在恐慌避险情绪时，利差的变化将不会引起大规模的跨国资本流动。美元指数对跨境资本流动的冲击效应具有一定的时滞性，美元升值将引发跨境资本流出，且冲击效应持续时间明显长于利差冲击。VIX指数和人民币汇率对跨境资本流动影响较弱，但呈现非对称性特征。加息和缩表后美元升值对资本外流的推动作用明显强于加息和缩表前，表明第三轮强周期下美元升值对我国跨境资本流动的影响更大。     

Which is the safe haven for emerging stock markets,gold or the US dollar?

This paper examines whether gold or the US dollar is a safe haven for emerging stocks. By calculating the low-high tail dependence between markets via copulas and the downside risk gains of portfolios, we find that both gold and the US dollar can serve as a safe haven for emerging stocks; that the US dollar is better than gold in most cases, while its superiority in hedging infinitely extreme risks is weakened in the subsample of global financial crisis and the out-of-sample; and that the downside risk gains offered by the US dollar for China and Thailand are very attractive.     

The US stock market and the international value of the US dollar

We investigate the spillover effect of the US equity market on the value of the dollar and therefore on the return and volatility of US equity investments for the international investor. The data are daily observations of the S & P 500 and the US dollar in terms of seven foreign currencies covering the period 1971–2002. Using Geweke measures of feedback, we find a high percentage of contemporaneous association between daily movements in the S & P 500 index and changes in the value of the dollar. A consistently positive relationship between the S & P 500 and the dollar is found for the period 1992–2002, creating a compounding effect for the foreign investor in US equities. However, investment by foreigners in US equities did not result in consistently higher returns but in higher volatility compared to their US counterparts for the period 1971–2002.     

美国经常项目赤字的可持续性研究

近年来,美国巨额经常项目赤字和美元持续贬值引起了经济学界的强烈关注,一些经济学家发出了美元和国际货币体系崩溃的警告。在现行国际货币体系即以资产为本位的泛布雷顿森林体系下,中心国家美国和外围亚洲国家形成了双赢的局面。该体系与布雷顿森林体系相比具有更大的安全性和稳定性,美国能够承受更大规模的经常项目赤字,并由此获得了更为灵活的政策操作空间。在某种程度上,美国巨额经常项目赤字是其雄厚的金融和经济实力的体现。     

Is the US Dollar a Suitable Anchor for the Newly Proposed GCC Currency?

Responses of inflation and non‐oil output growth from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries to monetary policy shocks from the United States (US) were estimated to determine whether there is evidence to support the US dollar as the anchor for the proposed unified currency. A structural vector autoregression identified with short‐run restrictions was employed for each country with Fed funds rate as the US monetary policy instrument, non‐oil output growth and inflation. The main results suggest that for inflation, the GCC countries show synchronised responses to monetary policy shocks from the US which are similar to inflation in the US, and for non‐oil output growth, there is no clear indication that US monetary policy can be as effective for the GCC countries as it is domestically. Consequently, importing US monetary policy via a dollar peg may guarantee only stable inflation for the GCC countries – not necessarily stable non‐oil output growth. If the non‐oil output response is made conscientiously – and there are concerns over the dollar’s ability to perform its role as a store of value – a basket peg with both the US dollar and the euro may be a sound alternative as confirmed by the variance decomposition analysis of our augmented SVAR with a proxy for the European short‐term interest rate.     

The rise of dollar credit in emerging market economies and US monetary policy

This paper examines the hypothesis that the boom in dollar credit in emerging market economies (EMEs) is associated with an excessively low interest rate in the US. For this purpose, we use a multivariate correlated unobserved component model that allows for correlation between shocks to dollar credit, cross‐border interest rate gaps—measured as the difference between emerging market interest rate and the US interest rate, and dollar index both in the short run and in the long run. In addition, it also provides us a quantitative estimate of the permanent and transitory movements in dollar credit in EMEs, interest rate gaps and dollar index. The results from this model do suggest that a temporary increase in interest rate gaps and decline in the dollar index are associated with a temporary increase in the dollar credit in EMEs with a very high degree of correlation. The estimate of the cyclical component of the dollar credit in EMEs from our model captures the recent boom and bust in this market and compares favourably to alternative trend–cycle decomposition methods.     

美国国际收支结构的特征、趋势分析及对中国的启示

美国日益增长的经常项目赤字和庞大的净对外债务已经成为影响世界经济的一个不确定因素。长期来看,以亚洲国家为外围主体为美国经常项目赤字融资这一复活的布雷顿森林体系难以长久存在,因而以“逆差+顺差”为特点的美国国际收支结构是很难持续的,美国的经常项目很可能会经历一次趋向平衡的调整过程。同时指出了中国对美国经常项目调整可能给中国经济发展带来冲击的应对措施。     

人民币汇率升值对我国贸易影响的评估

2006年以来伴随着人民币对美元的持续升值,我国对外出口继续高速增长。汇率是否是影响中国贸易的主要因素,中国出口增长的主要驱动是什么?本文通过建立中国与美国、欧盟、日本、韩国贸易的协整模型,并通过Granger因果检验、脉冲相应函数、方差分解等方法分析了汇率对贸易的影响。在此基础上,对2006年前三个季度的出口增长进行了因素分解,找出影响我国出口的核心因素,并进行了汇率压力测试,找出汇率升值的理论上限,进一步提出相关的政策建议。     

Global monetary policy under a dollar standard

This paper derives an optimal monetary policy in a world with a dollar standard, defined as an environment in which all traded goods prices are set in US dollars, so that exchange rate pass-through into the US price level is zero. We show that the US is essentially indifferent to exchange rate volatility, while the rest of the world places a high weight on exchange rate volatility. In a Nash equilibrium of the monetary policy game, US preferences dominate; the equilibrium is identical to one where the US alone chooses world monetary policy. Despite this, we find surprisingly that the US loses from the dollar's role as an international currency, since the absence of exchange rate pass-through leads to inefficient expenditure allocations within the US. Finally, we derive the conditions for a dollar standard to exist.     

次贷危机后中国持有的美元资产风险与对策研究

我国的外汇储备大量集中于美元和美元资产,特别是美国国债。美国次贷危机爆发后,中国外汇储备中的美元资产管理面临着更加严峻的考验。根据我国目前的外汇储备资产现状,应制定有效的应对策略,加大对外直接投资与储备资产多元化管理;加快增加黄金储备;以债权换技术、以债权换战略资源,且藏汇于民,以加速缓解人民币升值的压力,遏止资产风险的产生。     

Officials and Experts Optimistic on China's Economic Prospect

Assurance from officials Will the RMB appreciate or fall against the dollar?. Is China's record deficit too heavy a burden on the government? Zhou Xi-aochuan, Governor of the People's Bank of China, and Xie Xuren, Minister of Finance Ministry, have answered these questions when meeting the press in Beijing during the "two sessions".When asked about the RMB's appreciation against the dol-lar, Zhou said what China would like to see is "basically a stable" RMB, implying that there will be no drastic fluctuations of RMB exchange rates.     

不对称国际经济体系下的人民币汇率问题--一个劳动力平价视角

本文试从经济和金融全球化的视角,以劳动力平价为分析基础,分析在不对称国际经济体系中的人民币汇率水平问题。通过对中美劳动力平价以及中国与印度尼西亚、马来西亚和韩国三国的劳动力平价的比较研究,发现对美元而言,人民币1998年之前存在着较严重低估,1998年之后低估程度缩小;对印度尼西亚、马来西亚和韩国三国而言,10年来一直处于竞争性均衡中,在劳动力平价上不存在比较优势。因而,只有在人民币汇率形成机制中考虑东南亚国家货币的影响,才能保证我国商品的国际竞争力。