NPR’s Planet Money team did a great podcast last week about China’s accumulation of US dollars from its large trade surplus with the United States. This story offers a great illustration of the theories I introduced in my recent video lesson, The Relationship between the Current Account Balance and Exchange Rates. 

Listen to the podcast, watch the video lesson, and respond to the discussion questions that follow.

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Discussion Questions:

1. Why does the Chinese Central Bank possess over $3 trillion of foreign exchange reserves?
2. What does the Chinese Central Bank do with the vast majority of the money it earns from the sale of its exports that it does NOT spend on US goods? Why not keep this money in cash?
3. Why does the Chinese Central Bank manage the value of its currency, the RMB? Why not let the exchange rate be determined by the free market?
4. As the RMB is slowly strengthened against the dollar, who are the winners and losers? What impact should a stronger RMB have on the balance of trade between China and the US?

Related posts:

1. Trade surpluses are not all they’re cracked up to be!
2. Exchange rates, currency manipulations, and the balance of trade
3. Yeah, we have a trade deficit, SO WHAT?!

I have two  interesting stories on Apple and the iPad to reflect on today.

First, ABC’s Nightline recently became the first Western journalists actually welcomed into an Apple assembly plant in China. The show recently aired a 15 minute feature on working conditions inside Apple’s Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, China last week. Watch the video and then scroll down for what may be some additional surprising news about Apple’s operations in China.

Next, the story that has gone unreported lately is a University of California study titled “Capturing Value in Global Networks: Apple’s iPad and iPhone”. The study’s most interesting finding, in my opinion, is the tiny percentage of the total value of Apple’s iPhone and iPad that actually goes to the Chinese manufacturers of the products. The charts below, from the study, show how the value is divided among the various groups involved it their production and sales:

The Economist provides the analysis:

The chart shows a geographical breakdown of the retail price of an iPad. The main rewards go to American shareholders and workers. Apple’s profit amounts to about 30% of the sales price. Product design, software development and marketing are based in America. Add in the profits and wages of American suppliers, and distribution and retail costs, and America retains about half the total value of an iPad sold there. The next biggest gainers are South Korean firms like Samsung and LG, which provide the display and memory chips, whose profits account for 7% of an iPad’s value. The main financial benefit to China is wages paid to workers for assembling the product and for manufacturing some inputs—equivalent to only 2% of the retail price.

A student today asked why Apple doesn’t produce its products in the United States, where an economic downturn has left 14 million American out of work for the last three or four years. If iPads and iPhones were just made in America, jobs could be created, households would have more income to spend on Apples products, and both the country and the economy would benefit.

The data in the UC study indicates that in fact, more than half the value of an iPad or iPhone does end up in the hands of Americans. But Apple could never achieve the low costs and high profits that it does by assembling its products in the US. After watching the Nightline video above, it should be clear that the type of production involved in Apple factories’ is very low-skilled and labor-intensive. Using American labor, with its unions, minimum wages and 40 hour work weeks, would require Apple to employ such large numbers of workers and raise the company’s variable cost to such a level that the firm’s profits would be reduced significantly and its sales would fall dramatically. Apple would lose out to foreign producers of smart phones and tablet computers, such as LG, Samsung, Sony and others, which would continue assembling their goods with Chinese labor.

Ultimately, any gain to the low-skilled American workers (presuming Apple could even find enough to do the work of the 400,000 Chinese employed in the production of Apple products in China), would be offset by a loss of profits enjoyed by the millions of Americans who hold shares in Apple Computer and the thousands of American who are employed engineering and designing its products, as the firm’s sales would slip in the face of lower-cost competitors.

So this student’s question identifies an interesting paradox: America, with its large pool of unemployed workers, will never be attractive as a place to produce labor-intensive products such as phones and tablet computers, due to the vast wage differential between the US and China. And even if one firm did decide to produce its products in America, the gains to low-skilled workers who may find minimum wage work in the new assembly plants would be off-set by losses to the firms’ shareholders and the high-skilled workers whose jobs would be lost as sales decline due to the lower prices offered by lower-cost competitors.

The lesson here is two-fold: First, Apple and other American technology companies should continue using Chinese labor to assemble their products, and second, America is better off for it: lower costs mean cheaper products and higher sales, thus greater employment in the high-skilled sectors of the US economy, and more profits and returns on the investments of shareholders in American corporations. Americans are richer and enjoy a higher standard of living thanks to the millions of Chinese working in factories assembling the goods we consume.

Keep in mind, this analysis did not even consider the effect on the Chinese economy and the millions of Chinese workers (whose lives are much harder than the typical American) should companies like Apple shut down their Chinese manufacturing plants. That’s a whole other blog post!

Related posts:

1. International Trade Made Simple
2. “Buy American” is Un-American (The U.S. Stimulus Package)
3. America: Land of the free, home of “jackass” economists

I’m showing the PBS documentary, “Is Walmart Good for America?” to my AP Macroeconomics students today as we introduce the topic of trade balances.

Discussion questions will be posted soon.

Related posts:

1. Yeah, we have a trade deficit, SO WHAT?!
2. The Marshall-Lerner Condition, the J-curve, and the US trade deficit
3. Excuse me, China… could you lend us another billion? Understanding the imbalance of trade between China and the United States

The $1.4 Trillion Question – James Fallows – the Atlantic

Any economist will say that Americans have been living better than they should—which is by definition the case when a nation’s total consumption is greater than its total production, as America’s now is. Economists will also point out that, despite the glitter of China’s big cities and the rise of its billionaire class, China’s people have been living far worse than they could. That’s what it means when a nation consumes only half of what it produces, as China does.

Related posts:

1. Exchange rates and trade: a delicate balancing act, currently out of balance!
2. Exchange rates, currency manipulations, and the balance of trade
3. China’s “silver bullet” – a strong RMB could solve her biggest economic woes…

The Global Coal Trade’s Complex Calculation : NPR

Sometimes when I read the news, I wonder what it would be like to NOT understand basic economics, and then I realize how much of what goes on around us can be explained by two simple concepts: demand and supply. The NPR story below talks about how the construction of two proposed coal exporting facilities on America’s west coast could, indirectly, lead to a greener future for America. Listen to the story then read on for more analysis:

China, already the world’s largest coal consumer, continues to build new coal burning electricity plants at an alarming rate. Its appetite for the “black gold” has driven the world price up to $100 per ton, as it has demanded increasing quantities from its own coal producers, but also those in other coal rich areas like Australia and the United States.

However, because of America’s lack of coal transporting and shipping infrastructure, US coal producers have been unable to sell their abundant coal to the Chinese, who are willing to pay 500% the equilibrium price in the US. The US market has remained isolated from the world market, not due to any explicit, government-imposed barriers to trade, rather due to fact that they simply can’t get their coal to the Chinese energy producers who demand it most.

Graphically, this situation can be illustrated as follows:

If the export facilities on the West coast of the US are not constructed, it will remain difficult for US coal producers to sell their output to China at the high price of $100, and the domestic quantity (Q2) will continue to be produced and sold for $20 per ton. But with the new port facilities, US energy producers will now have to compete with Chinese energy producers for American coal, and the US price will be driven up to the world price, since demand now includes thousands of Chinese coal-fired power plants. As the price rises from $20 to $100, the domestic quantity demanded in the US will fall to Q1, as domestic energy producers seek alternative sources of energy, switching instead gas, solar, or wind power.

The irony is that through increasing the ease with which American coal producers can sell their product to China, the US may reduce its own consumption of coal and its emissions of greenhouse gasses. Overall coal production in the US will rise with increased trade, but overall consumption within the US will fall.

Now, this may sound great if you’re the kind of person who thinks only locally. Air pollution will be reduced in the US, health will be improved, our electricity production will be greener and more sustainable. But globally, by making its coal available to China, the US market will contribute to the continued dependence on carbon-intensive energy production, and delay any progress among Chinese energy producers towards a transisttion to greener fuel sources.

The podcast also points out the fact that if the US did undertake the construction of the new coal-exporting facilities, it could be that the current high price of coal will have led to the entrence of several other large coal prodcuing countries into the world market, reducing China’s demand for US coal, reducing the price at which American producers can sell to China and thereby off-setting any domestic environmental benefit that may have resulted from the large decrease in quantity demanded among US producers at the current price of $100 per ton.

The whole conversation about the coal industry is somewhat depressing when the environmental costs of the industry are considered. Another NPR show, Planet Money, ran a story this week about the “gross external damages” caused by the production of coal-powered electricity. They cited a study which found that the damages caused by coal to human health and the environment outweight the benefits enjoyed by society from the generation of cheap electricity by around $10 billion in the United States alone. This means that if the US shut down every coal-powered energy plant in the country immediately, total welfare in the US would increase by $10 billion. There’s no doubt that energy prices would rise, but the gains in human and environmental health would outweight the added costs of electricity generation by $10 billion. If a similar analysis were undertakein in China, I would guess the potential welfare gain of transitioning to alternative energies would be far greater for the Chinese people.

Here’s the chart from Planet Money’s blog showing the net welfare loss of coal-generated electricity and other economic activities in the United States.

*GED = Gross external damages from pollution

Discussion questions:

1. How would the construction of two coal-exporting facilities on America’s West coast ultimately lead to a cleaner environment in the United States? Do you think this prediction is realistic?
2. Who stands to gain the most if the coal-exporting facilities are constructed? Who would suffer? In your opinion, should the facilities be constructed? Why or why not?
3. Interpret the colorful diagram above. What do the green bars represent? What do the yellow and red bars represent? According to the graphic, which type of activity is most harmful to American society? How do you know?
4. True, false, or uncertain. Explain your reasoning. “The burning of coal to make electricity should be completely banned in China, since China is the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter.”

Related posts:

1. Tit, tat, tariff… China and America’s latest shoving match is underway
2. Supply and demand shifters and the price of pork in China
3. Monopoly prices – to regulate or not to regulate, that is the question!

The Economist – Sticking it to China

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1. How do changing interest rates affect exchange rates? The example of the RMB
2. AP Economics – will it evolve to a changing economic reality?
3. Free trade and low death rate = bad business

A nation’s balance of payments measures all the transactions between the residents of that nation and the residents of foreign nations, including the flow of money for the purchase of goods and services (measured in the current account) and the flow of financial or real assets (measured in the financial or capital account). The sale of exports counts as a positive in the current account, while the purchase of imports counts as a negative. In this way, a nation can have either a positive balance on its current account (a trade surplus) or a negative balance (a trade deficit).

The US has for decades run persistent deficits in its current account. As the world’s largest importer, Americans’ appetite for foreign goods has been unrivaled in the global economy. Of course, this is not to say that the US has not been a large exporter as well. In fact, the US is also one of the largest exporting nations, along with China, Germany and Japan, in the world. However, the total expenditures by Americans on imports has exceeded the country’s income from the sale of exports year after year, resulting in a net deficit in its current account.

So the news that rising incomes in China have fueled a boom in US export sales should come as a relief to US politicians and more importantly, firms in the American export industry:

Last year, American exports to China soared 32 percent to a record $91.9 billion.

A study by a trade group called the U.S.- China Business Council says China is now the world’s fastest-growing destination for American exports.

While United States exports to the rest of the world have grown 55 percent over the past decade, American exports to China have jumped 468 percent.

Most of those exports have come from California, Washington and Texas, which have shipped huge quantities of microchips, computer components and aircraft. But states that produce grain, chemicals and transportation equipment have also benefited.

China, which last year surpassed Japan to become the world’s second largest economy (measured by total output), is soon expected to become the world’s second largest importer as well:

And while much of what China imports is used to make goods that are then re-exported, like the Apple iPhone, Mr. Brasher says a growing share of what China imports from the United States, including cotton and grain as well as aircraft and automobiles, is staying in China.

“You know all those BMW X5 S.U.V.’s that are in China? They’re being imported from the U.S.,” Mr. Brasher said in a telephone interview Thursday. “They’re being made by a BMW factory in South Carolina.”

All this must be good news for the US, right? Growing exports to China must mean a smaller current account deficit, greater net exports and thus stronger aggregate demand, more employment and greater output in the United States. However, this may not be the case. While exports to China grow, the US economy’s recovery has led to a boost in the demand for imports from China as well. So, ironically, even as exports have grown 468 percent in the last decade, the US has still managed to maintain a stunningly large trade deficit with China: 

Last year, China’s trade surplus with the United States was between $180 billion or $250 billion, according to various calculations.

Still, the combination of a weakening American dollar and China’s growing economic clout is likely to bode well for American exports. With China short of water and arable land, exports of crops to China jumped to $13.8 billion last year.

Study the graph below and answer the questions that follow.

Discussion Questions:

1. What is the primary determinant of demand for exports that has lead to the growth over the last decade seen in the graph above?
2. What types of goods has China primarily imported from the US in the past? As incomes in China rise, how will the composition of its imports from the US likely change?
3. How is it possible that the US current account deficit remains as large as it does (as much as $250 billion) despite the growth in exports to China?
4. The value of China’s currency, the RMB, is closely managed by the Chinese Central Bank to maintain a low exchange rate against the US dollar. How does maintaining a low value of its currency exacerbate the imbalance of trade between China and the US? How would allowing greater flexibility in the RMB’s value help reduce the large imbalance of trade between the two countries?
5. If the US spent $250 billion more on Chinese goods than China did on US goods in 2010, where did that $250 billion end up? What does China do with the money the US spends on its goods that it does not spend on US goods? Define the financial account and explain the relationship between a nation’s current account balance and its financial account balance.

Related posts:

1. Excuse me, China… could you lend us another billion? Understanding the imbalance of trade between China and the United States
2. US Exports: the key to job creation? Obama thinks so…
3. Planet Money Podcast – “China’s Giant Pool of Money”

The business cycle is an economic phenomenon which describes changes in the level of economic output compared to a long run average. A simple set of data illustrating the business cycle is shown below. The level of Real GDP in most countries increased by a positive rate each year from 2000 – 2008, before the Global Financial Crisis caused the most significant recession and then recovery in recent history.

In Macroeconomics we can model changes in the level of economic activity using the Aggregate Demand and Aggregate Supply model. This theoretical idea is shown on the following diagram, which explains the link between the business cycle and the level of aggregate demand and aggregate supply in the economy.

When the actual GDP line is above the potential GDP line the economy is said to have a positive output gap as at the peak point. Aggregate Demand exceeds the potential capacity thus demand". Occurs when the price is below the equilibrium level, for example, when a government imposes a price ceiling in a market.');" onmouseout="tooltip.hide();">shortages occur and prices rise (inflation) also called an inflationary gap. Factors of production such as labour, land and capital are fixed in the short run, and wages can not change. Therefore the inflationary gap will remain in the short run.

When the actual GDP line is below the potential GDP line the economy has a negative output gap as in a recession. At this point there is spare capacity, higher then average unemployment leading to less inflationary pressures in the aggregate economy.  Also called a recessionary gap. We can relate this concept back to the Real GDP data, which explains a dramatic fall in the level of economic activity in 2009.

Each of these two simple scenarios is caused by changes in Aggregate Demand. As we studies last week, changes in Aggregate Demand can be caused by a variety of factors which influence each component

Components of Aggregate Demand (AD)

C – Consumer Spending

I – Investment

G – Government Spending

(X-M) – Net Export Receipts

The two following videos highlight changes to the level of Aggregate Demand and the resulting inflationary and recessionary gaps. The first video explains how the Chinese government is boosting aggregate demand by increasing government spending and investment. It is a likely response to boost economic activity, and to reduce unemployment.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The second video is a quick look at the UK government budget. A government budget explains the countries spending and taxation decisions for the coming year. The UK was forced to reduce government spending due to the countries very high levels of public debt. The UK has been forced to borrow money to pay for current spending, which increases the nations debt to the rest of the world.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Discussion Questions and Activities:

1. Explain any changes to Aggregate Demand that would result in an inflationary gap occurring?
2. When a country is experiencing an inflationary gap, what happens to price levels and the level of unemployment?
3. Video 1: What are the impacts on level of economic activity due to the government investment? Evaluate if you think this is an effective form of investment.
4. Video 2: The UK government is planning to increase VAT tax rates and decrease spending on national defence. Explain the likely effect of the level of economic activity (Real GDP), unemployment and the price level using the AD/AS model.
5. In your notes draw an AS/AD model to explain the impacts of the events shown in each video. Be careful to fully label each diagram with any changes.

Related posts:

1. Fiscal policy and the “vicious” business cycle
2. The business cycle rears its ugly head!
3. From the Help Desk – business cycles in command economies?

Should President Obama consider writing a thank you note to Chinese leaders for artificially manipulating the Chinese Yuan in the foreign currency markets?

For many years now, Chinese authorities have artificially intervened in the foreign currency market by buying up U.S. dollars spent on Chinese products and, in turn, investing those same U.S. dollars in U.S. Treasury Securities (ie, bonds and notes). For those that are not familiar with the foreign currency market, Chinese authorities buy the same U.S. Dollars provided by the U.S. to purchase Chinese products and, thus, leave or supply Chinese Yuan to the currency traders resulting in a decrease in the price of the now more plentiful Yuan and an increase in the price of the now more scarce dollar.  The Chinese authorities intervene in the foreign currency market for the sole purpose of depreciating (weakening) the Yuan relative to the U.S. Dollar, thereby helping Chinese exporters to become more price competitive in global markets. It is estimated by many economists, that the Yuan may be overvalued versus the U.S. dollar by approximately 30% due to this foreign currency intervention by China.

So while it is true that this action taken by Chinese authorities clearly depreciates the Yuan and appreciates the Dollar, thus, unfairly harming U.S. exporters; it is also hitting the “sweet spot” by sending those same U.S. dollars back to the U.S. Government to fund the record federal deficit spending expecting to total $1.3T in 2011 and providing American citizens with reduced prices on imports via the stronger dollar! More specifically, this currency intervention by Chinese authorities provides needed loanable funds back to the U.S. Government lowering borrowing costs or interest rates during this important U.S. economic recovery time. It also appears that US leaders are sending mixed messages to China as just last year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Beijing to encourage Chinese leaders to continue to purchase U.S. Government securities. This seems at odds with US officials cry for China to stop intervening in the foreign currency markets because by doing so needed federal deficit funding would dry up from the Chinese, forcing the US to borrow elsewhere and raise interest rates to entice that lending.

In summary, perhaps in the short term the United States should consider not pressuring China, as Treasury Secretary Tim Geihtner, Obama and the media have done regularly. Perhaps US officials should lay low, at least for awhile, and start pressuring the Chinese again in about three or four years, after the Government’s budget no longer calls for such large spending deficits.

Review Questions

1. What specifically are Chinese leaders doing to keep the Yuan weak against the U.S. dollar?
2. Why are Chinese leaders intervening in the foreign currency market?
3. Which parties, both American and Chinese, are helped and hurt by this intervention?
4. What would happen, other things equal to U.S. interest rates if Chinese authorities immediately stopped intervening in the currency market? Why?
5. What would be the immediate impact on the U.S. poor and working class if the Chinese immediately stopped intervening in the currency market?
6. What policy position would you take as President of the United States on this issue?

Related posts:

1. Is An Obama “Thank You Note” Owed to the Chinese?
2. Excuse me, China… could you lend us another billion? Understanding the imbalance of trade between China and the United States
3. China’s “silver bullet” – a strong RMB could solve her biggest economic woes…

FT.com / Asia-Pacific – Renminbi at heart of trade imbalances.

“The Americans get the toys, the Chinese get the Treasuries and we get screwed.” Thus a European Union official once characterised the pattern of Beijing accumulating US assets by selling renminbis for dollars, while nothing stood in the way of a rapid and destabilising appreciation of the euro.

In a world of freely floating exchange rates trade imbalances between countries would ultimately be reduced and eliminated. At least, that’s the belief of those advocating a floating exchange rate between East Asian currencies and the United States.

Here’s how it is supposed to work:

• Cheap labor and cheap imports from China following China’s joining the world economy 30 years ago led to a rapid increase in demand for Chinese manufactured goods in the US, creating growth, jobs, and rising national income for China.
• A trade imbalance emerges between the US and China as US spending on imports increases more rapidly than America’s  sale of exports. If the Chinese currency were allowed to float freely on foreign exchange markets, however, this imbalance would be temporary, because…
• The US current account deficit means, literally, that Americans are supplying more of their dollars in the foreign exchange market, while demanding more Chinese RMB. The forces of supply and demand would naturally lead to an appreciation of the RMB and a depreciation of the dollar.
• The weaker dollar resulting from the trade deficit with China would eventually make Chinese goods less attractive to Americans. Despite their lower costs of production, the weak dollar makes imported Chinese goods more expensive and less appealing to the American consumer.
• The strong RMB, on the other hand, makes American produced goods and services cheaper to Chinese consumers, who begin to import more from the US at the same time that Americans demand fewer of China’s products.
• Through free-floating exchange rates, a current account imbalance is eventually reduced and eliminated as exchange rates adjust to the flows of goods and services between trading partners.

A graphical version of this story is told here:

This, of course, is precisely what has NOT happened, thanks to China’s strict management of the value of the RMB. In order to keep its currency weak, Beijing directly intervenes in foreign exchange markets, “by selling renmenbi for dollars” to accumulate American assets. As seen in the next graph, such interference has the effect of keeping the dollar strong against the RMB.

As any IB student knows, the Balance  of Payments between two countries includes not only the trade in goods and services, but also the flow of real and financial assets, such as government securities, stocks, real estate, factories, and so on, between the countries. China has actively promoted a policy of acquiring such American assets, which keeps demand for dollars strong in China, and supply of RMB high in America, without creating any jobs in manufacturing or services for Americans. China has financed America’s current account deficit by assuring it maintains a capital account surplus!

Put more simply, China has exported goods and services to America, while America has exported ownership of its real and financial assets to China. This is a major area of concern for US policy makers, who would like to see a more balanced current account between the two countries, since it is the export of goods and services that creates jobs for American workers, not the sale of bonds, stocks and real estate.

Discussion Questions:

1. Why does Europe care about China’s fixed exchange rate with the US dollar?
2. Do you believe that American demand for Chinese goods would actually decline if the RMB were allowed to appreciate against the dollar? Why or why not?
3. Besides American workers and firms, who else suffers from a weak Chinese currency? How could China actually benefit from allowing the RMB to strengthen against the dollar?
4. How does China maintain the RMB’s peg against the dollar without buying large quantities of US exports?

Related posts:

1. Exchange rates, currency manipulations, and the balance of trade
2. How do changing interest rates affect exchange rates? The example of the RMB
3. Lesson plan: Elasticity, exchange rates and the balance of payments – understanding the Marshall Lerner Condition

Mr. Welker’s note: The following post was submitted by a former student of mine at Shanghai American School. Marco graduated in 2008, completing the higher level IB Economics program. He now studies Economics and Political Science at McGill University in Canada. The following was written as an assignment for a McGill course, Econ 302: Money, Banking and Government Policy.

When Mr. Welker supervised my Extended Essay in 2008, the US Congress had already started putting pressure on the Chinese to allow their currency to appreciate. The economics of the US trade deficit seemed quite simple: the US bought more Chinese goods than the other way around, resulting in a current account deficit and causing the Yuan to appreciate. In return, the Chinese were in the habit of buying US government bonds, resulting in an American capital account surplus and depreciating the Yuan in relation to the Dollar. In other words, America has a Chinese credit card and the bill is quite large.

For obvious reasons, Congress is not thrilled with the debt. They have long claimed that the Chinese purposefully buy all this debt in order to boost their exports, but that it unfairly drags the US into further debt. The old protectionist tendencies flared and Congress tossed around accusations that Chinese companies maintain sub-American product quality, evidenced by the lead that was found in some toys, among other things. The threat of lead poisoning was a nifty pretense under which more stringent safety regulations could have rid the US market of Chinese goods without explicitly saying that they were doing so. In the end, Congress stuck to labeling China a ‘currency manipulator,’ which Chairman of the Fed Ben Bernanke upheld just a few days ago.

The game changer was the financial crisis. It turned out that the US wasn’t just indebted to China but also to themselves. For example, the price of housing in America had divorced itself from reality and people were purchasing houses that they couldn’t afford, on the assumption that they could sell it later at a higher price. When the housing bubble popped, the bookies came to collect the debt and people had a problem.

The US Federal Reserve responded to the crisis by pumping US$800 billion into the American economy. It has followed up by announcing second cash injection of US$600 billion just a few weeks ago. This is part of a policy called Quantitative Easing (QE), in which the central bank maintains a low interest rate and purchases bonds from the government, financial institutions, insurance companies and pension funds with the objective of creating more credit in the economy.

This is where politics and economics really start to interact. Bernanke has showed the Chinese that is not afraid to create more money. That is, he is not afraid to create more US Dollars. China owns a substantial amount of US Dollars. If the value of the US Dollar falls, then the value of Chinese assets fall, since nearly $2 trillion US dollars and dollar denominated assets are held by the Chinese central bank. The Fed’s increase in the money supply could ultimately cause inflation and a depreciation of the dollar, eroding the value of China’s US$ assets. The Chinese will surely not allow Bernanke to simply inflate away the value of Chinese owned American debt.

In response, the Chinese have been slowly moving out of US Dollars, which is smart. Chinese companies and the government (the distinction is blurred) are showing strong demand for raw materials and commodities. China is buying big in copper, buying big in Africa, buying lots of aluminum, tin, zinc, canola and soybeans, as well. According to J.P. Morgan, China’s iron ore imports were 33 percent higher in April than a year earlier. Crude oil imports were up nearly 14 percent, aluminum oxide imports climbed 16 percent and refined copper imports jumped 148 percent.

The future looks very bright for China, indeed. By recycling its US debt into commodity ownership, China is creating a very nice situation for itself. Commodities are goods of real value and only likely rise in value over time, whereas US debt exists on paper and is subject entirely to the value of the US Dollar. Purchasing abroad reduces the current account surplus, stops the yuan from rising and keeps China’s exports competitive. But, most importantly, having large commodity reserves will safeguard its industrial policy in the future, when the West may find itself in a supply crisis. China may have internal discontents, but it is exceptionally well placed in the international economy.

Related posts:

1. China: formerly the world’s factory, now a nation of consumers…
2. Excuse me, China… could you lend us another billion? Understanding the imbalance of trade between China and the United States
3. China makes, the world takes

The following is an excerpt from Chapter 22  - “Balance of Payments” of my soon to be published textbook “Pearson Baccalaureate Economics”

If the total spending by a nation’s residents on goods and services imported from the rest of the world exceeds the revenues earned by the nation’s producers from the sale of exports to the rest of the world, the nation is likely experiencing a current account deficit. The situation is not at all uncommon among many of the world’s trading nations. The map belowmap  represents nations by their cumulative current account balances over the years 1980-2008. The red countries all accumulated current account deficits over the three decades, with the largest by far being the United States with a cumulative deficit of $7.3 trillion. The green countries are ones which have had a cumulative surplus in their current accounts, the largest surplus belonging to Japan at $2.7 trillion, followed by China at $1.5 trillion.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cumulative_Current_Account_Balance.png

The top ten current account deficit nations are represented below. It is obvious from this chart that the United States alone accounts for a larger current account deficit then the next nine countries combined. At $7.3 trillion dollars in deficits over 28 years, the US deficit surpasses Spain’s (at number 2) by 1,000 percent.

The consequences of a nation having a current account deficit are not immediately clear. It should be pointed out that it is debatable whether a trade deficit is necessarily a bad thing, in fact. Below we will examine some of the facts about current account deficits, and we will conclude by evaluating the pros and cons for countries that run deficits in the (In macroeconomics): The period of time over which wages and prices are relatively inflexible. A fall in aggregate demand will lead to unemployment and recession in the short-run. Due to the inability of the nation's producers to reduce wages paid to worker, they must lay workers off to reduce costs as demand falls.');" onmouseout="tooltip.hide();">short-run and in the long-run.

Implications of persistent current account deficits: When a country like like those above experience deficits in the current account for year after year, there are some predictable consequences that may have adverse effects on the nation’s macroeconomy. These include currency depreciation, foreign ownership of domestic assets, higher interest rates and foreign indebtedness.

The effect of a current account deficit on the exchange rate: In the previous chapter you learned about the determinants of the exchange rate of a nation’s currency relative to another currency. One of the primary determinants of a currency’s exchange rate is the demand for the nation’s exports relative to the demand for imports from other countries. With this in mind, we can examine the likely effects of a current account deficit on a nation’s currency’s exchange rate. Additionally, we will see that under a floating exchange rate system, deficits in the current account should be automatically corrected due to adjustments in exchange rates.

When households and firms in one nation demand more of other countries’ output than the rest of the world demands of theirs, there is upward pressure on the value of trading partners’ currencies and downward pressure on the importing nation’s currency. In this way, a movement towards a current account deficit should cause the deficit country’s currency to weaken.

As an illustration, say that New Zealand’s imports from Japan begin to rise due to rising incomes in New Zealand and the corresponding increase in demand for imports. Assuming Japan’s demand for New Zealand’s output does not change, New Zealand will move towards a deficit in its current account and Japan towards a surplus. In the foreign exchange market, demand for Japanese yen will rise while the supply of NZ$ in Japan increases, as seen above, depreciating the NZ$.

The downward pressure on exchange rates resulting from an increase in a nation’s current account deficit should have a self-correcting effect on the trade imbalance. As the NZ$ weakens relative to its trading partners’ currencies, consumers in New Zealand will start to find imports more and more expensive, while consumers abroad will, over time, begin to find products from New Zealand cheaper. In this way, a flexible exchange rate system should, in the long-run, eliminate surpluses and deficits between nations in the current account. The persistence of global trade imbalances illustrated in the map above is evidence that in reality, the ability of flexible exchange rates to maintain balance in nations’ current accounts is quite limited.

Foreign ownership of domestic assets: By definition, the balance of payments must always equal zero. For this reason, a deficit in the current account must be offset by a surplus in the capital and financial accounts. If the money spent by a deficit country on goods from abroad ends up in the does not end up returning to the deficit country for the purchase of goods and services, it will be re-invested into the county through foreign acquisition of domestic real and financial assets, or held in reserve by surplus nations’ central banks.

Essentially, a country with a large current account deficit, since it cannot export enough goods and services to make up for its spending on imports, instead ends up “exporting ownership” of its financial and real assets. This could take the form of foreign direct investment in domestic firms, increased portfolio investment by foreigners in the domestic economy, and foreign ownership of domestic government debt, or the build up of foreign reserves of the deficit nation’s currency.

The effect on interest rates: A persistent deficit in the current account can have adverse effects on the interest rates and investment in the deficit country. As explained above, a current account deficit can put downward pressure on a nation’s exchange rate, which causes inflation in the deficit country as imported goods, services and raw materials become more expensive. In order to prevent massive currency depreciation, the country’s central bank may be forced to tighten the money supply and raise domestic interest rates to attract foreign investors and keep demand for the currency and the exchange rate stable. Additionally, since a current account deficit must be offset by a financial account surplus, the deficit country’s government may need to offer higher interest rates on government bonds to attract foreign investors. Higher borrowing rates for the government and the private sector can slow domestic investment and economic growth in the deficit nation.

Side note: While the interest rate effect of a large current account deficit should be negative (i.e. causing interest rates to rise in the deficit country), in recent years the country with the largest trade deficit, the United States, has actually experienced record low interest rates even while maintaining persistent current account deficits. This can be understood by examining by the macroeconomic conditions of the US and global economies, in which deflation posed a greater threat than inflation over the years 2008-2010. The fear of deflation combined with low confidence in the private sector among international investors has kept demand for US government bonds high even as the US trade deficit has grown, allowing the US government and central bank to keep interest rates low and continue to attract foreign investors.

Whereas under “normal” macroeconomic conditions a build up of US dollars among America’s trading partners would require the US to raise interest rates to create an incentive for foreign investors to re-invest that money into the US economy, in the environment of uncertainty and low confidence in the private sector that has prevailed over the last several years, America’s trading partners have been willing to finance its current account deficit at record low interest rates.

The effect on indebtedness: A large current account deficit is synonymous with a large financial account surplus. One source of credits in the financial account is foreign ownership of domestic government bonds (i.e. debt). When a central bank from another nation buys government bonds from a nation with which it has a large current account surplus, the deficit nation is essentially going into debt to the surplus nation. For instance, as of August 2010, the Chinese central bank held $868 billion of United States Treasury Securities (government bonds) on its balance sheet. In total, the amount of US debt owned by foreign nations in 2010 was $4.2 trillion, or around 50% of the country’s total national debt and 30% of its GDP.source: http://www.ustreas.gov/tic/mfh.txt

On the one hand, foreign lending to a deficit nation is beneficial because it keeps demand for government bonds high and interest rates low, which allows the deficit country’s government to finance its budget without raising taxes on domestic households and firms. On the other hand, every dollar borrowed from a foreigner has to be repaid with interest. Interest payments on the national debt cost US taxpayers over $400 billion in 2010, making up around 10% of the federal budget. Nearly half of this went to foreign holders of US debt, meaning almost $200 billion of US taxpayer money was handed over to foreign interests, without adding a single dollar to aggregate demand in the US.

The opportunity cost of foreign owned national debt is the public goods and services that could have been provided with the money that instead is owed in interest to foreign creditors. If the US current account were more balanced, foreign countries like China would not have the massive reserves of US dollars to invest in government debt in the first place, and the taxpayer money going to pay interest on this debt could instead be invested in the domestic economy to promote economic growth and development.

Discussion Questions:

1. Why would a large current account deficit cause a nation’s currency to depreciate? How could a weaker currency automatically reduce a nation’s current account deficit?
2. Why should governments be concerned about a large trade deficit? What is one policy a government could implement to reduce a deficit in the current account?
3. Would a nation with a large trade deficit be better off without trade at all? Why or why not?
4. Discuss the validity of the following claim: “Americans buy tons of Chinese imports, but the Chinese don’t buy anything from America, this is why the US has such a huge trade deficit with China”. To what extent is this claim true or false?

Related posts:

1. Trade balances around the world
2. The Marshall-Lerner Condition, the J-curve, and the US trade deficit
3. Okay, a trade deficit is bad, what can we do about it?

This post was originally published on September 15, 2009. It is being reposted today for my year 2 IB Econ students, who are studying free trade and protectionism as part of Unit 4 of the IB Econ course.

US president Barack Obama made a speech directly to Wall Street today. In his speech, Obama reflected on the many lessons America has learned in the last year since the financial crisis began. He urged his audience of investors, bankers and brokers that

“Normalcy cannot lead to complacency,” Obama said. “Unfortunately, there are some in the financial industry who are misreading this moment. Instead of learning the lessons of Lehman and the crisis from which we are still recovering, they are choosing to ignore them.”

“They do so not just at their own peril, but at our nation’s,” the president added.

In addition to his warnings about the threat posed by overly risky financial markets to the US economy, President Obama expressed his commitment to free trade and “the fight against protectionism”.

Obama says:

…enforcing trade agreements is part and parcel of maintaining an open and free trading system.

The enforcement of existing trade agreements Obama refers to is his way of justifying a decision his administration made over the weekend that actually limits free trade between America and one of its largest trading partners, China.

Trade relations between two of the world’s biggest economies deteriorated after Barack Obama, US president, signed an order late on Friday to impose a new duty of 35 per cent on Chinese tyre imports on top of an existing 4 per cent tariff.

In his first big test on world trade since taking office in January, Mr Obama sided with America’s trade unions, which have complained that a “surge” in imports of Chinese-made tyres had caused 7,000 job losses among US factory workers.

So, in his speech today, Obama decries protectionism and calls for expanded trade and free trade agreements which are “absolutely essential to our economic future”. But only three days ago, he supported a blatantly protectionist measure aimed at keeping foreign produced goods out of America in order to save a few thousand American jobs.

Obama’s decision is a bad one for several reasons. As an economics teacher, I will turn firstly to a diagram for an illustration of the net loss to the American people of higher tariffs on imported tires:

The key point to notice in the above graph is that a tariff on imported tires results in a net loss of welfare in America. The blue area represents the increase in the welfare of tire manufactures (this could be interpreted as the jobs saved in the tire industry and the profits earned due to higher prices); the black areas, on the other hand, are welfare loss. Since all tire consumers in America pay more for their tires due to the 35% tariff, real income is affected negatively for the nation as a whole.

One effect of the protectionist policy the graph does not illustrate, and perhaps the most serious negative impact of the tariff on America, is the response the Chinese are likely to take to what they interpret as a violation of existing free trade agreements between the US and China.

“This is a grave act of trade protectionism,” Mr Chen said in a statement. “Not only does it violate WTO rules, it contravenes commitments the US government made at the [April] G20 financial summit.”

Beijing said it had requested WTO-sanctioned consultations with the US over Washington’s new duties on tyres. Yao Jian, a commerce ministry spokesman, said the duties were in ”violation of WTO rules”.

China said it would now investigate imports of US poultry and vehicles, responding to complaints from domestic companies.

The problems with protectionism are myriad. Clearly American consumers suffer through higher tire prices. In addition, Chinese manufacturers will see sales fall as their product becomes less competitive in the US market. According to the CCTV report below, as many as 9,000 workers in the Chinese tire industry will lose their livelihoods due to declining demand from the US. But the unforseen effects of the US tariff on Chinese tires is the retaliatory measures China will almost certainly take. If China imposes new tariffs on American automobiles and poultry, the scenario in the graph above will be reversed, and Chinese consumers will face higher prices, Chinese car and poultry producers will experience rising sales, while the American auto worker and chicken farmer will suffer.

Free trade tends to result in net benefits for economies that choose to participate in it. American tire manufacturers are certainly harmed by cheap Chinese imports; however, America as a whole benefits through cheaper goods, more consumer surplus, higher incomes in China and therefore greater demand for imports of products made in America. The road to protectionism is a dangerous path to take for the Obama administration. Justifying these new tariffs by claiming that they “enforce existing free trade agreements” is a political maneuver aimed at covering up the truth, which is that the Obama administration has sided with a special interest group to save a few thousand jobs and garner political favor at a time when 700,000 American jobs are being lost each month. By doing so, he is calling into question his own commitment to free trade, and harming America’s image as a global proponent of global economic integration.

Discussion Questions:

1. Why is the Chinese government so upset about a new tax on such an insignificant product as automobile tires?
2. “Self-sufficiency is the road to poverty”: Do you agree?
3. Some would say that it is a small price to pay for Americans to face higher prices for one product like tires in order to “save” 7,000 Americans’ jobs. Would you agree? Why or why not?
4. If 7,000 Americans were to lose their jobs due to free trade with China, what would we call the type of unemployment experienced by these workers? Is this the same type of unemployment experienced by the 700,000 workers who have lost their jobs each month during the last year of recession in the United States?

Related posts:

1. McCain vs. Obama on the costs and benefits of free trade
2. Tit, tat, tariff… China and America’s latest shoving match is underway
3. Free Trade Debate: to what extent has globalization based on free trade contributed to global economic growth and development?

China rations diesel as record oil hits supplies | Markets | Reuters

In the fall of 2007 I was living in Shanghai, China. At the time, oil prices were hitting record levels world wide, leading to rising petrol prices for drivers in most places.  However, at the time,  I began witnesing an unusual site on my taxi rides into the city of Shanghai: as our taxi passed petrol station after petrol station, I observed dozens of blue trucks (the ubiquitous medium of transporting good from Shanghai’s factories to her ports) spilling out of gas station parking lots into the road, apparently queued, waiting for a spot at the pump. I had never seen such long lines at any of the petrol stations around Shanghai before, and I began to wonder as to the reasons for these crazy long lines!

Well, an article at the time helped solve the riddle of the long lines. As it turns out, there was a simple explanation rooted in the principles of supply and demand that any first semester AP or IB economics student would understand! The Chinese government had been forced to ration petrol (limiting the amount that a driver can buy at one go) due to the shortages resulting from the government’s price controls in the petrol market.

Truck drivers reported long queues at petrol stations along a national highway linking Fujian and Zhejiang provinces, with each truck getting 100 yuan ($13) worth of diesel, or around 20 litres, per visit at a state-run station and 40 litres at a private kiosk…

“What’s wrong with the oil market? Our drivers had to queue the whole night for only a small amount of fill, slowing the traffic by almost one day,” said Gao Meili, who manages a logistics company.

China is a major importer of oil. With an economy growing around 12% in 2007, much of the country’s growth depended on the availability of crude oil at reasonable prices, which China’s oil refining firms turn into diesel and petrol, needed to get Chinese manufactured products from factory to port and from port to overseas consumers.

The problem with the oil market in China, however, was that as “Chinese refiners cannot pass the souring crude costs on to consumers.” Oil is an input needed to make a finished product, diesel. As the price of oil rose in 2007 (it reached a record of $92 per barrel in October of that year), the resource costs to petrol and diesel producers also rose, shifting the supply of petrol and diesel to the left, putting upward pressure on the equilibrium price.   As a first semester AP or IB student knows, resource costs are a determinant of supply, and as oil (the main resource in the production of petrol and diesel) increased in price, the supply of these important commodities invariably decreased.

In a free market, a decrease in supply leads to an increase in price. Herein lies the answer to the riddle of the long lies at petrol stations in Shanghai: the Chinese petrol and diesel market is not a free market. The government plays an active role in controlling prices paid by consumers for the finished product refiners are producing, petrol fuel:

Beijing fears stoking already high inflation and rigidly caps pump fuel rates to shield users from a 50 percent rally in global oil so far this year.

As the costs to petrol and diesel producers rose in 2007, the government in Beijing took the side of consumers and forbade fuel producers from raising the price they charge consumers.  The Chinese government essentially imposed a price ceiling in the market for petrol. A price ceiling is a maximum price set by a government aimed at helping consumers by keeping essential commodities like fuel affordable. As we have learned this week in AP and IB Economics, price controls such as this end up hurting BOTH producers AND consumers, since they only lead to a dis-equilibrium in the market in which the quantity demanded for a product rises while the quantity supplied by firms falls. The shortage of petrol and diesel resulting from the government’s price control are the perfect explanation for the long lines of blue trucks and motor scooters at all the gas stations in Shanghai during October of 2007.

So why, exactly, does the government’s enforcement of a lower than equilibrium price result in such severe shortages that truck drivers are only allowed to pump 20 litres of petrol per visit and made to wait hours each time they need to refill? Below is a supply and demand diagram that illustrates the situation in the Chinese fuel market in 2007:

In the graph above, the supply of petrol has decreased due to the increasing cost of the main resource that goes into petrol, oil. This decrease in supply means petrol has become more scarce, and correspondingly the equilibrium price should rise. However, due to the government’s intervention in the petrol and diesel markets, the price was not allowed to rise and instead remained at the maximum price of Pc.

At the government-mandated maximum price of Pc, the quantity of fuel demanded by drivers far exceeds the quantity supplied by China’s petrol producers. The result is a shortage of petrol equal to Qd-Qs.

The government’s intention for keeping petrol prices low is clear: to make consumers happy and keep the costs of transportation among China’s manufacturers low so as to not risk a slow-down in economic growth in China. However, the net effect of the price controls is a loss of total welfare in the petrol market. Notice the colored areas in the graph above. These represent the effect on welfare (consumer and producer surplus) of the price control.

• The total areas of the green, orange and grey shapes represent the total amount of consumer and producer surplus in the petrol market assuming there were NO price controls. At a price of Pe, the quantity demanded and the quantity supplied are equal (at Qe) and the consumer surplus and producer surplus are maximized. The market is efficient at a price of Pe. Neither shortages nor surpluses of petrol exist.
• However, at a price of Pc (the maximum price set by the government), the amount of petrol actually produced and consumed in the market is only Qs. Clearly, those who are able to buy petrol are better off, because they paid a lower price than they would have to without the price ceiling. But notice that there is a huge shortage of fuel now; many people who are willing and able to buy petrol at Pc simply cannot get the quantity they demand, because firms are simply not producing enough!
• The total consumer surplus changes to the area below the demand curve and above Pc, but only out to Qs. The green area represents the consumer surplus after the price control. It is not at all obvious whether or not consumers are actually better off with the price ceiling.
• The total producer surplus clearly shrinks to the orange triangle below Pc and above the supply curve. Petrol producers are definitely worse off due to the government’s action.
• So how is the market as a whole affected? The black triangle represents the net welfare loss of the government’s price control. Notice that with a price of Pe, the black triangle would be added to consumer and producer surplus, but with a disequilibrium in the market at Pc, the black triangle is welfare lost to society.

Price controls by government’s clearly have an intended purpose of helping either consumers (in the case of a maximum price or price ceiling) or producers (in the case of a minimum price or price floor).  But the effect is always predictable from an economist’s perspective. A price set by a government above or below the equilibrium price will always lead to either a shortage or a surplus of the product in question. In addition, there will always be a loss of total welfare resulting from price controls, meaning that society as a whole is worse off than it would be without government intervention.

Discussion Questions:

1. Why has the supply of petrol decreased?
2. With a fall in supply of a commodity like petrol, does the demand change, or the quantity demanded? What is the difference?
3. Define “consumer surplus” and “producer surplus”. Why does a government’s control of prices reduce the total welfare of consumers and producers in a market like petrol?
4. How would a government subsidy to petrol producers provide a more desirable solution to the high oil prices than the maximum price described in this post? In your notes, sketch a new market diagram for petrol and show the effects on supply, demand, price and quantity of a government subsidy to petrol producers. Does a subsidy create a loss of welfare? Why or why not?

Related posts:

1. The problem with price controls in Europe’s agricultural markets
2. Beijing caves in to the indisputable power of the MARKET!
3. So, how are those Zimbabweans doing under Mugabe’s price controls?

When teaching international trade to high school economics students, one of the challenges is understanding the pros and cons of trade surpluses and deficits. A country’s balance of trade refers to the net flow of revenues and expenditures goods and services between the country and its trading partners. In technical terms, this is known as the current account on a nation’s balance of payments. A country that spends more on imports than it earns from the sale of exports has a current account deficit. A nation that earns more from the sale of its goods and services to the rest of the world than it spends on imports has a current account surplus.

A common impressions among students is that a trade surplus is good and a trade deficit is bad. One challenge I face in teaching this topic is separating economic terms such as “suplus” and “deficit” from non-economic, normative concepts such as “good” and “bad”. In fact, a trade surplus is not always a good thing. To illustrate, I will look at the current account balances between China and the United States. In 2007, the US ran a trade deficit with China of $258 billion. While the US imported $321 billion of Chinese goods and services, it only earned $63 billion from the sale of exports to China. To most students, it would appear that China is “winning” in the game of trade, since it has such an enormous trade surplus with the United States. This, however, is not necessarily the case.

One way of looking at trade balances is that a nation with a substantial current account surplus is actually consuming less of its own output due to the high demand from abroad. As mentioned above, in 2007 Americans spent $321 billion on Chinese goods and services. China only produced $3.2 trillion of goods and services that year, meaning Americans actually consumed over 10% of the stuff produced in China! This represents Chinese output that is NOT being consumed by the Chinese. Additionally, since China imported far less from abroad than it sold, Chinese output being consumed abroad is far from made up for by Chinese consumption of foreign output. While this may sound like a good deal from the perspective of producers, who have a larger market due to trade, from the perspective of Chinese households it means they are consuming less than they are producing as a nation!

One of the goals of macroeconomics is to increase the standards of living of the nation’s people through an increase in the consumption of goods and services. In this regard trade deficit countries are actually better off than trade surplus countries, since they are actually consuming MORE than they are producing as a nation! A trade deficit country gets more than it gives, in a way, which sounds pretty good when if you consider total consumption to be an end in itself. A trade surplus country, on hte other hand, gives the rest of the world more than it gets in return (in terms of goods and services, that is).

Another consequence of running a large trade surplus is the build up of foreign exchange reserves. China, for instance, held over $1.3 trillion USD in its central bank in 2007, representing an enormous level of savings for the Chinese people, since these are dollars earned by the people of China (from their export sales to America), but not spent. These reserves represent a form of forced savings on the people of the nation.

The average Chinese consumer is also made worse off because the governments’ US dollar reserves are held intentionally to keep the value of the dollar high, thereby keeping the price of American and other nation’s imports prohibitively high for Chinese consumers. In this regard, China’s 50% national savings rate is a form of financial tyranny by the government perpetrated against the Chinese people, who, as consumers, would be much better off if the RMB were allowed to appreciate and imported goods and services could be more easily and affordably attained by Chinese households. Employment in the export sector might suffer but falls in exports would likely be made up for with gains in domestic consumption, meaning the overall effect on employment is likely to be mild upon a reductions in China’s trade surplus.

Furthermore, in order to maintain China’s trade surplus the Chinese government must keep the RMB weak. As already mentioned, one way it does this is by holding its US dollar reserves to keep the supply of dollars on foreign exchange markets low and its value high. Another way the Chinese central bank manipulates its currency is by constantly changing the level of interest rates to limit or encourage foreign capital flows into or out of the country, since such flows affect the Chinese currency’s value. If the Chinese central bank and government were to adopt a flexible exchange rate policy, which would help reduce the country’s trade surplus with the United States, this would allow the central bank to use monetary policy in the way it is meant to be used: to stimulate or contract the level of domestic consumption and investment. This week US Fed chairman Ben Bernanke spoke to the US Senate about China’s exchange rate controls, and made a similar point:

“Most economists agree the Chinese currency is undervalued and has been used to promote a more export-oriented economy. I think it would be good for the Chinese to allow more flexibility in their exchange rate.”

Letting its currency, the renminbi, appreciate would give China’s central bank more flexibility in monetary policy and help stimulate domestic demand and consumption, Mr. Bernanke said

China’s trade surplus does not necessarily benefit the country as a whole. Surpluses do keep export sector employment high, but result in a lower overall level of consumption among Chinese households and impose a higher than necessary level of savings on the nation. More balanced trade would increase the level of imported goods and services in China, increase real incomes as the value of the nation’s currency rises, and also allow for more inflows of foreign capital from abroad, further stimulating growth in China’s domestic economy.

Discussion Questions:

1. What are the advantages and disadvantages for the United States of its large current account deficit?
2. What are the advantages and disadvantages for China of its large current account surplus?
3. What benefits would China experience if its currency, the RMB, appreciated against the dollar? What negative consequences would this have for China?
4. Why does China’s large holdings of US dollars and US government debt represent a form of “forced saving” imposed by the Chinese government on the people of China?
5. Would you rather live in a country with a current account surplus or a current account deficit? Why?

Related posts:

1. Exchange rates and trade: a delicate balancing act, currently out of balance!
2. Exchange rates, currency manipulations, and the balance of trade
3. Silver lining of US recession- more balanced trade