Manon's Econ Blog

Using information from your research and your knowledge of economics evaluate the US claim that China is manipulating its currency.

The US and China are the two greatest power in the world right now. They have been trading, so exchanging goods and services, with each other for a long time now, since China opened up to the world. Chinese products are known to be cheap almost everywhere else in the world; thus Americans consume much of it.

The Chinese export their products; hence they manufacture them in China and then sell them to the world. The US imports them into their country, since they are so affordable. The issue is that, in order to keep a balance in the economies, they need to find a balance in the number of imports and exports. Nevertheless, the US imports a lot more from China than it exports from it; and vice versa for China. As a result, the US is in deficit to China, while China is in deficit to the US.

In order to fully understand the causes and consequences of this, we need to look at currency exchange rates. The US believes in free market, thus it has a floating exchange system, which means that the value of the currency is decided only by the equilibrium point in the supply and demand diagram for the currency, as shown on the diagram below.

This diagram represents the floating system of the US since only the supply curve S and demand D determine the equilibrium point Ep, thus price P. This price P is the price of US dollars in terms of Yuan, in order words how much Yuan bills are needed to buy 1 US dollar. Since the market is floating it is responds highly to change either in demand or supply of dollars, thus fluctuates often.

On the contrary, China has a managed, which means that the value of its currency is set to a certain number of dollars by the government, and does not respond to changes in the market, as shown on the diagram below.

The diagram is a fixed exchange rate because it both managed and fixed, the price of Yuan in terms of Dollars depend on the government, and is set below the equilibrium point Ep for a price of P*. As a result, there is a shortage of Yuan of Q1-Q2.

So, why does this even matter? In order to answer this question fully, we need to first understand the balance of payments, which is a measure of a country’s trade’s performance. It is made of the current (visible and invisible trade, and net transfers) and capital (transfers of capital, investment and loans, and national reserve) account, which need to balance each other out so that the balance of payment is equal to 0.

The US have a balance of payment that is negative, and China has a positive one, and this is an issue for both of them because it creates international tensions, that may, in the long term, deterior the relationship between the two countries.

The UK’s currency depreciated, but since the exports and imports are demand inelastic, a change in price will not lead to a great increase in quantity; thus imports are more expensive but the quantity did not change, and exports are cheap but not more people demand it. Therefore, the Marshal Lerner condition was not filled out.

Since the condition was not filled out, the UK did not get better but the currency devaluated, thus it became even worse, so the first part of the J-curve. Nevertheless, as the world noticed that UK exports are cheap they may demand more, and the UK suppliers may be able to be more efficient thus they may meet the need of the people of the country, so the UK economy will get better. The J-curve will then be complete.

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Spain was one of the first countries who wanted to join the Euro Area, because it thought having a single currency would help them develop. Nevertheless, recently Spain has been in more trouble than other European countries such as Germany, but the Euro’s exchange rate and policies have to be one for all. Therefore, Spain cannot help its country right now with policies, so it is getting worse and worse. It is stuck in Europe.

If Spain wants to fix its economy, the best way would be for it to get out of Europe and get its own currency back so that it could use policies. Neverthless, it cannot do that easily, so its economy is getting worse, and is not ready to get better soon.

Good Job

The current account of the Philippines is currently in surplus. The surplus of the country in terms of GDP is 3.5%. It is expected to reach 0 by 2013. Right now, the country is in good condition since it's better off in surplus rather than in deficit. … Read More

via Abby's Economic Blog

Historical trends

It has been in deficit since 2004.

Current account deficit 2.67% of GDP

Current account -56.13 billion $

GDP 2.097 trillion $

There are different arguments for both free trade and protectionism. Different people argue different things, depending on their interests. I agree with both to some extent.

Protectionism is good in the sense that it helps people to have a job and be able to live in normal conditions. It saves individual companies and we cannot forget about them. It is not so much an economic point of view, but more of a personal and political point of view.

Cheap imports and free trade will benefit the world as a whole and other economies, but I am not sure how great it the benefit compared to how badly the poor people will suffer with free trade. If the money and growth from free trade was spread equally between people I will agree with free trade, but in the real world it does not so the distinction between how great free trade is is not as clear.

I agree with free trade because it helps the whole economy, and in some ways it will help even the bottom part of the society. The economy will be able to grow and that is important because a better standard of living for the country is always good. Nevertheless, not all people will benefit from the growth so I am not convince with the greatness of free trade that economics agree upon.