Category Archive: Exchange rates

• Is China Still a ‘Currency Manipulator’?

  Ed Dolan October 24th, 2012

  “On day one, I will label them a currency manipulator.” So spoke Mitt Romney during Monday’s Presidential debate, threatening, as he has innumerable times, to hit China with new tariffs if it doesn’t stop using a cheap yuan to steal U.S. jobs. But does the label still fit? We all know the story by heart. [...]

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• Will the Dutch Disease Kill Hopes Raised by Colombia’s Free Trade Agreement?

  Ed Dolan August 10th, 2012

  After a torturous journey through Congress, the United States-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement (CTPA), first signed in 2006, came into effect on May 15 of this year. The agreement has raised high hopes in Colombia, for which the United States is by far the largest trading partner. However, while the CTPA was fighting its way through [...]

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• Latest Data Show US Export Drive is Faltering

  Ed Dolan June 16th, 2012

  The latest international trade data for the United States show that the country’s export drive, which has been a bright spot in an otherwise weak recovery, is now faltering. Nominal exports of goods grew a modest 1.6 percent in Q1 2012; a broader measure of exports that includes goods, services, and income receipts grew just [...]

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• How the Latin Triangle Swallowed the Euro

  Ed Dolan May 11th, 2012

  Back in 1996, Rudiger Dornbusch wrote a paper about the political economy of exchange rates in Latin America. He called it “The Latin Triangle”. It describes a cycle in which governments become trapped in inappropriate fixed-exchange rates that inevitably end unhappily. Latin America has put that particular form of economic instability behind it, but a [...]

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• Afghanistan’s Economic Future, Aid, and the Curse of Riches

  Ed Dolan December 1st, 2011

  We hear a lot about the future of Afghanistan after NATO withdrawal in 2014. Most of the speculation focuses on security and politics. Too little of it concerns economics. A pair of new reports, one from the World Bank and the other from the IMF, help fill the gap. If you thought the security and [...]

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• The Senate’s Currency Manipulation Bill Is Not Only Bad Policy, but Unnecessary

  Ed Dolan October 12th, 2011

  China’s currency manipulation is bad policy. So is the Senate’s latest crackdown on it. The bill passed yesterday is not only bad policy, but unnecessary. Here’s why. First of all, before we get hysterical about Chinese policy, we should recognize that currency manipulation is the global norm, not the exception. By a recent count, only [...]

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• How Gordon Brown Saved Britain from the Euro and Why that Makes him a Hero

  Ed Dolan October 2nd, 2011

  In his new book, Alistair Darling describes Gordon Brown’s political style as “appalling,” “volcanic,” and “brutal.” He should know. The two men sat together in the cabinet for years while Brown was chancellor. Darling then served as chancellor himself when Brown finally became prime minister. Now that Brown is out of office, it seems he [...]

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