Book Review: C. Fred Bergsten and John Williamson, eds., Dollar Adjustment: How Far? Against Whom? (2004) Peterson Institute, Washington, DC

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Abstract:

In today’s times, the single most debated question in international policy circles is the fate of the U.S. dollar and the U.S current account. This book is a collection of essays on this debate. The papers were presented at a conference in Washington, D.C., on May 25, 2004, organized by the Institute for International Economics. The main questions that were asked at the time of the conference were the following: (1) How much further does the dollar need to depreciate? (2) Against which currencies does it need to depreciate? The general consensus among the authors is that there is a serious misalignment of key national currencies in the world. The main conclusion is that the dollar needs to decline by an additional 15 percent or so and most of this adjustment needs to take place against Asian currencies. This will require China to revalue its exchange rate against the dollar by around 20 percent.

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PDF: http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/002205106776162708
Last updated on 04/11/2020