For years China has kept the value of its currency, the yuan, artificially low in order to help exporters, much to the annoyance of the countries trading partners. European and American trade authorities have called for China to abandon its managed exchange rate system, hoping that a stronger yuan would help their own manufacturers as consumers would demand less of the undervalued Chinese goods.

We’ll, this week China has begun to relax its exchange rate controls, but to the frustration of Western trade promoters, the currency has moved in the wrong direction, actually weakening against the dollar and euro.

Marketplace explains the differences between floating and managed exchange rates in the podcast below.

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About the author:  Jason Welker teaches International Baccalaureate and Advanced Placement Economics at Zurich International School in Switzerland. In addition to publishing various online resources for economics students and teachers, Jason developed the online version of the Economics course for the IB and is has authored two Economics textbooks: Pearson Baccalaureate’s Economics for the IB Diploma and REA’s AP Macroeconomics Crash Course. Jason is a native of the Pacific Northwest of the United States, and is a passionate adventurer, who considers himself a skier / mountain biker who teaches Economics in his free time. He and his wife keep a ski chalet in the mountains of Northern Idaho, which now that they live in the Swiss Alps gets far too little use. Read more posts by this author

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