What Exactly Would a Stronger Yuan Do for the US Economy?

Obama’s trip to China was mostly photo-ops and talk about the importance of trade. The one topic on which Obama spoke sharply was the need for China to allow the Yuan (officially called the Renmimbi) to strengthen against the dollar. Many analysts are criticizing the Chinese government for ‘manipulating’ the Yuan, keeping it too low relative to other Asian currencies. Paul Krugman, perhaps the best-known economist in the US, calls it ‘outrageous’, and accuses China of making its export-oriented neighbors poorer through unfair currency manipulation. Leaving aside the obvious point that all currencies are manipulated—in a world of fiat currencies, no item of intrinsic value stands behind the dollar or the Yuan—let’s explore the question of how the US might benefit from an strengthening of the Yuan.


Back in 2005, the World Bank estimated the Yuan to be undervalued by 10%, based on purchasing power parity. Other economic analyses have concluded an undervaluation of 20 to 25%. Let’s take the upper end of the these estimates and assume the Yuan is undervalued by 25%, and that China, acting for the good of the world, allows the Yuan to appreciate 25% against the dollar. What would that do for the US economy?


The most obvious and immediate effect would be an increase in prices. Consumer price theory tells us that that increases in exogenous costs such as tariffs are not fully reflected in final prices, but the cost is shared by producer and consumer depending on the elasticity of demand. The increase in prices directly translates into increased prices for consumer goods, for apparel, electronic goods, raw materials, food items, etc. It’s hard to see how that rise in prices would benefit American households, who are feeling the effects of 10.2% unemployment and falling home prices. It’s more likely that increased consumer prices would bring significant hardship.


In theory, an appreciation of the Yuan should narrow the trade deficit between the US and China. But it’s likely that the trade deficit won’t fall much (if at all), because consumers driven by low prices are likely to select goods from other low cost producers (Thailand, South Korea, the Phillipines, or India, for example).


Would an appreciation of the Yuan cause an increase in American employment? It’s hard to see how. There aren’t many US industries that are in direct price competition with Chinese exporters. Overall, the US economy is in a process of shifting back toward productive activity (including manufacturing), but such a shift is the product of many structural economic forces, not simply the relative value of the Yuan and the dollar.


As Obama urged China to allow the Yuan appreciate, Zhou Xiaochuan, the head of China’s central bank, fired back that the US needs to get its fiscal deficits under control and raise interest rates. Zhou is clearly correct that currency manipulation (in whatever direction) cannot help the US economy out of its malaise. Only fundamental economic changes can do that. But cutting the deficit in this economy will require massive spending cuts, while raising interest rates will cut off the monetary stimulus, no doubt deepening the recession.

If only it were as easy as blaming China.

Stimulus Blues

I recently had the opportunity to take an unoffical poll of my economist colleagues a the City College of San Francisco, where I teach. One of the areas of very strong agreement was that the US dollar is the most serious risk to the US economy (there was one dissenter out of six economists). The other area of agreement was that the US needs another stimulus, on the order of $500 billion. Here, I was the lone dissenter. (Several of my colleagues didn’t feel another stimulus was politically feasible; I don’t think another stimulus is desirable economically.)

My colleagues are in good company; Paul Krugman, the 2008 Nobel prize-winner in economics has called for a second stimulus, as has Robert Reich and many others. A majority of economists were in favor of the first stimulus, though there were also some prominent dissenters. I think the views of economists tend to mesh with the conventional wisdom that the government has to do something.

The problem is that doing something is rarely a good substitute for doing the right thing.

Economics has largely scrapped the distinction between necessary and surplus value; necessary value is the portion of value that reproduces the capital and labor that went into producing a good or service, while surplus value is the additional value of the product above the cost of production. Without this key distinction, it becomes impossible to distinguish between economic activities which are productive (directly produce surplus value) and unproductive (those that do not); we’re left with only GDP numbers, without a notion of where the value flows came from.

To try to increase GDP without considering whether we’re increasing productive or unproductive economic activity is dangerous in an economy like the US, where unproductive activity has been steadily rising over the last 60 years. This rise has been financed by growing debt and capital inflows to the US economy, but as these flows slow, unproductive activity becomes less and less viable. To put it simply, the future of the US economy is in agriculture and manufacturing, not in finance, retail, or advertising. While there will always be a place for finance and other unproductive activities in the economy, it must be recalled that government is also an unproductive activity. As government spending increases, it absorbs a greater portion of the economy’s total surplus, at the very moment when that surplus is most needed to restructure, innovate, and re-invest. That is a recipe for a lingering malaise, such as what Japan experienced in the 1990s.

This is the time for government to cut back, do less and spend less, to balance the budget, and to trim taxes. In short, the government should take the advice given to a man in a small pond, thrashing about in an effort to make the muddy water clear:

Be still; it will happen best on its own.

Ah, Krugman!

To sum up: A few months ago the U.S. economy was in danger of falling into depression. Aggressive monetary policy and deficit spending have, for the time being, averted that danger. And suddenly critics are demanding that we call the whole thing off, and revert to business as usual.

The above is a quote from the marvelous Paul Krugman. I love him; and yet, he's so wrong right now.

Let's be clear: aggressive monetary and fiscal policy have not averted any danger to the economy. The danger is not inflation, nor is it deflation. The danger is economic distortions. That is, massive investment in unproductive economic activity (retail, advertising, finance, etc.). This kind of economic activity does not produce anything, and hence it is the major threat to the economy.

Why are there economic distortions? Why should it be the case that the market, which often gets things right, ought to be disastrously wrong? What causes the distortions is the massive inflation of the money supply. That may lead to inflation or it may even lead to stable prices, even deflation for a time. It all depends on how the extra dollars are used. If they are saved, no inflation in consumer prices. If dollars are spent elsewhere in the world, no inflation (at least in the US). If those extra dollars are spent in the US, expect to see some inflation.

Rising or falling prices is not the danger. The danger is that there is a prolonged period of confusion: what are my assets worth? Is my business viable? Should I start this business? What is the market saying?

If the answers to these questions are unusually obscure for a long period of time, the result will be stagnation, low growth, and unemployment. This is the danger. And it's in full bloom now. More aggressive monetary and fiscal policy will worsen the situation, not make it better.

Ferguson vs Krugman

Historian Niall Ferguson takes Paul Krugman to task in a recent Financial Times piece.

Ferguson is right of course, that the debt load of the US is onerous and that our creditors are starting to wonder if we'll ever pay it back.

While Ferguson is correct that we have not entered a repeat of the Great Depression yet, I think he lays a bit too much emphasis on that fact. Yes, we're not there. Yet. The big difference, of course, is the status of the dollar as the world's reserve currency. That will change, and as it does, a series of painful adjustments will take place in the US.

Krugman: Don't Worry About Inflation

Paul Krugman is at it again. (Here's a picture of him with former President Bush) 

This time, he reassures us of two ideas: 1) all that money the Fed is creating won't push up prices, and 2) the US would never default on its debt obligations by inflating away the debt.

So, for Krugman's first assertion, while he is correct that the contraction in bank lending has counteracted the increase in money created by the Fed, it flies in the face of logic to think that the Fed can create trillions of dollars out of nothing and that this will have zero effect on prices. Doesn't it seem more likely that certain prices are being prevented from falling to their equilibrium level by the Fed's monetary mischief, thus distorting the price mechanism? 

See, the thing is, the US is approaching this psychological level, where the debt of the Federal government approaches 100% of GDP. This is only important because people often fail to see that the two can't be compared directly - GDP is a flow, like your yearly income, and debt is a stock, like the value of your stock portfolio (except in reverse!). So just as a person who makes $50,000 a year could owe $75,000, so it is possible that the US debt exceeds GDP, and nothing really changes from debt being 90% of GDP to debt being 100% or more. However, GDP is a good reference point for understanding the level of debt, because it shows our capability for paying back the debt, and also gives us a yardstick which adjusts for changes in the price level and economic growth.

Now there's this thing called denial. When a lot of people say "you don't need to worry about that," they're often saying, "I get why you're worried about that - you should be". Krugman's denial of inflation is similar to his denial of debt default. There's no way the US would default on its debt, he shouts. No way in hell! 

In other words, it's extremely likely. All signs point toward default: escalation in borrowing, continued current account deficits, falling dollar, rising yields.

Paul Krugman, I salute you. You're a great economist. You've made important contributions to the theory of international trade. You were right about the war in Iraq. But you're wrong on this: the US will default on its debt, and the method we'll choose is inflation. I'd suppose you have 5 or 10 years before you have to admit your mistake. 

I'll be waiting!

Nice Graphic on Unemployment by County

Check out Slate for a nice animated graphic on unemployment by county in the US.

The graph shows something that apparently Paul Krugman has forgotten: the real estate bubble actually did cause important economic distortions, which are now manifesting in real job losses.

Krugman argues that the real estate bubble isn't what's behind job losses now; I agree insofar as the real estate bubble is an intermediate rather than primary cause. The primary cause is the explosion of money created by the fractional reserve banking system, overseen by the Federal Reserve and the Federal government.

Krugman vs. Austrian View of Booms and Busts

Robert Murphy has an interesting blog post on the Austrian economic explanation for booms and busts. Austrian economics is based on the writings of Carl Menger, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, and Murray Rothbard.

This post is a critique of a recent post by Paul Krugman, who seems to intentionally misunderstand the views of other schools of thought in economics. Is it so difficult to understand each perspective and give it a fair hearing before attempting to refute it?

It seems this crisis may offer an opportunity to test which of the predictions from these schools of thought end up being more accurate: the Keynesian view, as seen in Paul Krugman's writings, or the Austrian view. For example, Krugman writes:

Just a quick note on the new, pessimistic CBO budget projections:
1. These projections have no bearing on the case for a large stimulus now — none. Adding, say, another $600 billion to stimulus spending would, on net, add around $400 billion to debt a decade from now (net is less than gross because the stimulus expands GDP, which leads to higher revenues that partly offset the initial outlay.)

This is a testable hypothesis. We shall see if it is the case that spending another $600 bil actually results in an addition of (only) $400 bil in debt in a decade.

Just to be fair, let me throw in my own prediction: this crisis will be a severe test of the Keynesian faith in monetary and fiscal stimulus, for neither one is capable of solving the problem. All indications point to an inflationary recession and stagnation, much like the Japanese experience of the 1990s. Of course, Japan did not have the world's reserve currency. We do, and we're tempted to use that power to inflate away our massive debts. I predict we will do so, like Roosevelt did in 1933 when he essentially defaulted on US debt by suspending the gold standard and devaluing the dollar by 41%.

Rather than saying, along with Krugman, that debt doesn't matter, we ought to be recognizing that expanding the Federal debt burden to finance an economic stimulus is exactly the wrong direction. We ought to trim spending and cut taxes, and get out of the way of the inevitable economic adjustment to equilibrium.