东亚美元本位、浮动恐惧和原罪

概要亚洲金融危机以前 ,包括中国在内的东亚国家———除了日本———都把本国的货币与美元挂钩。为了避免进一步的混乱 ,国际货币基金组织曾建议这些国家的汇率应该进一步自由浮动。可是 ,我们的分析表明 ,到目前为止 ,美元在东亚国家的货币篮子里依然占据绝对比重 ,也就是说 ,东亚国家的汇率制度基本上又回到了危机以前。到 2 0 0 2年 ,每一个东亚国家货币对美元的每日波幅已经非常微小 ,以至于可以忽略不计。同时 ,大多数东亚国家迅速积累了作为“战争基金”的官方外汇储备 ,这预示着汇率稳定将从每日延续到每月和每个季度。从“原罪”(…

East Asian Dollar Standard, Fear of Floating, and Original Sin

Before the crisis of 1997-98,the East Asian economies-except for Japan but including China-pegged their currencies to the US dollar.To avoid further turmoil,the IMF now argues that these currencies should float more freely. However,our econometric estimations how that the dollar's Predominant weight in east Asian currency baskets has returned to its pre-crisis levels.By 2002,the day-to-day volatility of each country's exchange rate against the dollar has again become negligible.In addition,most governments are rapidly accumulating a"war chest"of official dollar reserves,which portends that this exchange rate stabilization will come to extend over months or quarters.From the doctrine of"original sin"applied to emerging-market economies,we argue that this fear of floating is entirely rational from the perspective of each individual country.And their joint pegging to the dollar benefits the East Asian dollar bloc as a whole, although Japan remains an important outlier.