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Economics

أحزان الدولار

Aug 11, 2020 Mohamed A. El-Erian

لاجونا بيتش ــ أفضى انخفاض قيمة الدولار الأميركي بما يقرب من 10% منذ بلغ أعلى مستوى له في مارس/آذار إلى ظهور روايتين مختلفتين. الأولى تتخذ منظورا قصير الأجل، مع التركيز على الكيفية التي قد يستفيد بها اقتصاد الولايات المتحدة وأسواقها من انخفاض قيمة الدولار؛ وتتخذ الثانية وجهة النظر البعيدة التي تتناول التخوفات بشأن هشاشة وضع الدولار كعملة احتياطية عالمية. كل من الروايتين تحتوي على بعض الحقيقة، ولكن ليس بالقدر الكافي لتبرير الإجماع الناشئ حولها.

تضافرت عدة عوامل لتفرض ضغوطا دفعت الدولار إلى الهبوط (قياسا على مؤشر DXY للعملات المرجحة بالتجارة) في الأسابيع الأخيرة، مما أدى إلى انخفاض قيمة الدولار في غضون بضعة أشهر فقط بما يعادل نصف الارتفاع الذي سجله تقريبا في السنوات العشرة الأخيرة.

مع تخفيف بنك الاحتياطي الفيدرالي الأميركي لقيود سياسته النقدية (فعليا ومستقبليا) في الاستجابة لتوقعات اقتصادية متدهورة، انخفض الدخل المتراكم من الملاذات الآمنة المقومة بالدولار، مثل سندات الحكومة الأميركية. ومع خسارة الاستثمارات التي تتخذ من الولايات المتحدة مقرا لها بعض جاذبيتها النسبية، حدث تحول في الحيازات لصالح الأسواق الناشئة وأوروبا (حيث وافق الاتحاد الأوروبي الشهر الفائت على ملاحقة تكامل مالي أعمق).

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 6 Comments on this article

Muhammad Ali Nasir Aug 30, 2020

Yes, the text books are oversimplification, here is the evidence https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/twec.12986
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Muhammad Ali Nasir Aug 30, 2020

As usual an interesting and thought provoking piece by El-Erian, on your point that the depreciation won,t lead to improvement in external balance I can,t agree more and here is the an empirical study I did with my coauthor, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/twec.12986
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Petey Bee Aug 12, 2020

"It is hard to replace something with nothing"

While this is of course true, it is also an argument of last resort, a far cry from the unquestioned solidity of trust and safety that is the reason to use dollars in the first place.

And for two of the biggest economic zones in the world, it is a stretch to imagine that no practical alternative exists to the dollar, especially medium-term.

For example, around half of the Eurozone's foreign trade in goods is still in dollars (according to Eurostat, as of 2018 which is the latest published data). For transactions in which one of the parties is in the Eurozone, of course there is an alternative to the dollar.

Likewise trade with China, already dominant in global industrial activity and infrastructure. While the dollar would certainly be the best currency to use for a third party doing transactions with China, the practicality of business has yielded to power politics -- now that the Trump administration (NB, with bipartisan support) has brought the weaponized financial system to bear on China's biggest businesses.

I agree that the dollar's position as the dominant international currency is not about to change any time soon, but there is reason to think the alternatives, weak though they may still be, will now start to mature in earnest.
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Frans Verhagen Aug 11, 2020

It is not only a “shocking lack of international policy coordination” in this “gradual fragmentation of the international economic order” but also the shocking unwillingness of neoclassical economists to look alternative interpretations such those proposed by the diverse strands of the MMT and authors such Kate Raworth, Ellen Brown etc.

The coronavirus-19 pandemic offers the world a golden opportunity to transform our debt-based financial system into a money-based financial system of public funding and sovereign money and to transform the unjust, unsustainable, and therefore, unstable international monetary system into a just, sustainable, and, therefore, stable international monetary system by basing it on a decarbonization standard such a specific tonnage of CO2e per person as proposed in Verhagen 2012"The Tierra Solution: Resolving the Climate Crisis through Monetary Transformation". These two pillars of New Social Contract can contribute to the advancement of a just and sustainable global governance system which is being developed in the book’s sequel entitled “PRIME TIME for the Planet: a road map for a just and sustainable global governance system for the 21st century and beyond.”
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Waleed Addas Aug 11, 2020

It would have been appropriate to also shed light on the consequences of such a continued depreciation in the US dollar on the demand (increased) for oil and the subsequent effect on the climate. We need to elevate our analysis always beyond finance or economics and keep in mind the effects on sustainable socio-economic development and income distribution...
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