Undervalued Currency Helps Boost China Growth 人民币低估推动中国经济增长

U.S. and European officials have long carped that China should let its undervalued currency rise. But a paper Harvard economist Dani Rodrick presented at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C. Thursday shows how ignoring those complaints have made China better off.
美国和欧洲的官员们一直抱怨说，中国应该让低估的人民币升值。但哈佛大学经济学家丹尼•罗德里克(Dani Rodrick)周四在布鲁金斯学会(Brookings Institution)所作的报告却告诉人们，中国正是因为没有理会这些抱怨才使自己的经济保持了良好发展态势。


Economists have long argued that when a country's currency goes up too much, it can be a death knell for economic growth.
经济学家们早就认为，如果一个国家的货币升值幅度太大，就会给该国经济增长敲响丧钟。


'Overvalued exchange rates are associated with shortages of foreign currency, rent-seeking and corruption, unsustainably large current account deficits, balance-of-payments crises, and stop-and-go macroeconomic cycles,' points out Rodrick. But he argues that, at least in the developing world, the opposite is also true: Undervalued currencies help boost economic growth.
罗德里克指出，与汇率高估相伴的是外汇短缺、寻租和腐败、难以承受的巨额经常项目逆差、国际收支危机以及走走停停的宏观经济增长；相反，汇率低估却总能推动经济增长，至少发展中国家的情况是这样。


China offers a case in point, with economic growth accelerating when it currency is undervalued - Rodrick's most recent calculations put China's yuan at about 50% below where fundamentals say it should be trading versus other countries' currencies. The same pattern appears in other developing countries, but not in developed countries.
中国就是一个很好的例子，当它的货币被低估时经济增长就会加速。根据罗德里克的最新计算，人民币目前兑其他国家货币的汇率比按照中国经济基本面所应有的汇率水平低50%。同样的情况也出现在其他发展中心，但却未在发达国家出现过。


The reason, Rodrick thinks, is that an undervalued currency makes developing countries far more competitive on trade than it does for developed countries. Of course if every country in the developing world decided to try to make their currency the most undervalued, the results wouldn't be pretty.
罗德里克认为，其原因是低估的货币可以大幅提升发展中国家的竞争力，但对发达国家竞争力的提振作用却不那么明显。当然，如果所有发展中国家都试图让自己的货币成为低估程度最深的那一个，那结果就不妙了。