Brad Delong links to the Krugman post titled A Weaker Dollar Is in America's Interest. I have always maintained that weaker dollar is essential for US economy to recover. Weaker dollar has come about using a different mechanism that investors anticipated.
The value of any currency refers to or is derived in relation to a basket of goods. The basket has significant number of commodities. So as investors moved the commodity prices up, the value of the US dollar automatically depreciated. In other words, investors created this devaluation and not the central bank.
The process, however, is fraught with risks. In a world of pegged currencies, we now have devalued the entire currency universe. This, to my mind, is not correct. The purchasing power of other currencies, particularly the Yuan, should be higher. The discrepancy has crept in because of central bank action. Developing countries are worried about export competitiveness declining with even small appreciation in currency. As a result they have to tolerate higher inflation and no amount of domestic slowdown may correct it. Only those countries that have strong economic transmission mechanisms can tolerate inflation. However, this is only short term relief. As transmission mechanism takes effect, it translates into higher wages and thus lower competitiveness.
With the Chinese reserves topping USD3 trillion, I guess we have some more time. I had mentioned in an earlier posts that it will take doubling of Chinese reserves till we have decisive action. At the time Chinese reserves were close to USD 2 trillion. So I am expecting this process to continue for some more time in accordance with the phases I mentioned back in video (relinked below) in 2009.
USD Dollar Views from 2009(links to old post)
USD Dollar Views from 2009(links to old post)
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