For example, Poland and the Czech Republic have seen their currencies go up by close to 30 and 15 , respectively. Major countries also have undergone currency appreciations 30 for Japan and 15 for China.

(c) Excessive capital inflows can create problems such as currency appreciation, a rise in asset prices, an increase in money supply and subsequent inflationary pressures.

When this pattern is combined with the depreciation of the new Israeli shekel (NIS) in 2003 and then its appreciation in 2004, it is clear that while the Palestinian trade balance does not benefit from the depreciation of the Israeli currency, it suffers the full negative impact of currency appreciation.

Devaluation of the currency.

As the United States dollar strengthened against nearly all major currencies, the overall currency effect on the Fund was negative in United States dollar terms.

This includes such factors as home market growth constraints, liberalization and currency appreciation.

Such booms are typically associated with currency appreciation and trade liberalization.

In addition to short term policy headaches, stronger currencies carry potentially significant costs in terms of hollowing out industrial and service sectors. So, after a varying mix of tolerance and heterodox responses, officials are pulled into loosening their own monetary policy in order to weaken their countries currencies or, at a minimum, limit the pace of appreciation.

Inflation was generally lower in 2004, partly owing to currency appreciation, which offset the sharp increase in petroleum prices to some extent.

Beggar Thy Currency Or Thy Self?

This is how monetary values will be displayed.

By my calculations, the dollar still needs to go down another 15 if the US trade deficit is to go back towards balance. Ideally, Asian currencies would rise much more than 15 while European currencies would rise less.

Since China reformed its exchange rate regime in July 2005, the renminbi has risen 32 relative to the dollar and about 30 in inflation adjusted terms against a broad basket of currencies. These are hardly trivial amounts, and more renminbi appreciation can be expected in the years to come.

However, extended periods of currency appreciation and depressed world prices have tended to be associated with declining rates of surplus extraction.

If this increase resulted from an increase in supply, the value of money will go down, which means inflation. But if it resulted from an increase in demand, the value of money will increase, which means deflation.

The change can be measured by real exchange rate appreciation, which consists partly in nominal renminbi appreciation against the dollar, and partly in Chinese inflation. China s government should have let more of the real appreciation take the form of nominal appreciation (dollars per renminbi).

Monetary stabilization programmes and currency controls introduced since 1992 have managed to reduce inflation, GDP is on the rise and gradual recovery in production and trade is taking place (see table 1).

The ECB can curb the euro s appreciation through purchases of foreign currency. But, ultimately, it would have to do so by inflating its own currency until confidence in the euro falls back to the level that it had before the assurances were made.

20. The national currency was devalued.

15. The national currency has stabilized, depreciating by 1.5 per cent against the United States dollar in 1997, which resulted in a real appreciation of 3 per cent. Credit growth has been strong.

For the US, the combination of a stronger economy and less accommodative monetary policy will put additional upward pressure on the dollar s exchange rate which has already appreciated significantly against both the euro and the yen. With few other countries willing to allow their currencies to strengthen, the dollar s tendency toward appreciation will remain strong and broad based, potentially triggering domestic political opposition.

Time for China to Float

But there is a more fundamental point From an economic viewpoint, currency manipulation or unfair undervaluation are exceedingly hard to pin down conceptually. The renminbi's slight depreciation against the dollar in 2014 is not evidence of it many other currencies, most notably the yen and the euro, depreciated by far more last year.

Why China is Right on the Renminbi

For a given supply of money, an increase in the production of goods will increase the value of a currency, because each unit will buy more goods. Likewise, increasing the supply of money relative to a fixed amount of output will lead to a decline in the purchasing power of money, as each currency unit buys fewer goods.

As it is, the valuation of a country s currency is not so much determined by the performance of its economy as by the forces of supply and demand on foreign exchange markets. For a given supply of money, an increase in the production of goods will increase the value of a currency, because each unit will buy more goods.

Even though the Fed has not yet started raising interest rates, the well established US economic recovery and the prospect of monetary tightening have, over the last year, caused the dollar to appreciate sharply against most currencies, those of emerging markets and advanced countries alike. If the Fed tightens as early as the middle of this year, further dollar appreciation is likely.

Indeed, as the IMF has pointed out in its World Economic Outlook, these flows threaten to inflate asset bubbles, make it harder for countries to pursue an independent monetary policy, and trigger currency appreciation and associated losses in export competitiveness. Brazil s currency, for instance, appreciated more than 40 from 2009 until August 2011, before weakening in recent months.

As fiscal austerity and asymmetric adjustment have taken their toll on economic performance, monetary policy has borne the burden of supporting faltering growth via weaker currencies and higher net exports. But the resulting currency wars are partly a zero sum game If one currency is weaker, another currency must be stronger and if one country s trade balance improves, another s must worsen.

This fear of a stronger dollar is the real reason for concern, bordering on panic, in many emerging economies and at the IMF. A significant strengthening of the dollar would indeed cause serious problems for emerging economies where businesses and governments have taken on large dollar denominated debts and currency devaluation threatens to spin out of control.

Convert values to base currency

At the same time, there is a need to increase the monetary value of GDP, that is, the amount of currency employed in the economy, without causing inflation.

One need not be an economist to figure out that, while all currencies can (and do) depreciate against something else (like gold, land, and other real assets), by definition they cannot all weaken against each other. In order for some currencies to depreciate, others must appreciate.

A Devaluation Option for Southern Europe

At the same time, the effect of currency appreciation on the trade balance should not be exaggerated. The RMB appreciated by 18.6 in real effective terms, and by 16 in dollar terms, from June 2005 to August 2008.

The equivalent in United States dollars of other currencies is established on the basis of the United Nations operational rates of exchange.

MUNICH Because China has pegged its undervalued currency, the renminbi, to the dollar, every weakening of the dollar in the wake of America s financial crisis has also meant a weakening of the renminbi vis à vis other world currencies. But is China really to blame for the eruption of a global currency war?

If a discrete exchange rate appreciation is to be sustained, it must reflect expected monetary policies tight money and deflation in the appreciated country, and easy money with inflation in the depreciated country. But domestic money growth in China s immature bank based capital market is high and unpredictable, while many interest rates remain officially pegged.

China s recent intervention in the currency market also sent mixed signals. For years, the authorities tended to support the renminbi, as they pursued renminbi internationalization an effort that culminated in the International Monetary Fund s recent decision to add the renminbi to the basket of currencies that compose its reserve asset, so called Special Drawing Rights.

In some cases, currencies move in the same direction as monetary policy for example, when the yen dropped in response to the Bank of Japan s 2013 quantitative easing. But in other cases the opposite happens, for example when the euro and the pound both strengthened after their central banks began quantitative easing.

But whether renminbi appreciation will work depends on reducing China s net capital inflows and current account surplus. International experience suggests that, in the short run, more capital flows into a country when its currency appreciates, and most empirical studies have shown that gradual appreciation has only a limited effect on countries current account positions.

b The local currency is the St. Helena pound, which is equivalent to the United Kingdom pound sterling.

After the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, the rapid expansion of the money supply in the US and the UK triggered a sharp appreciation of the Japanese yen, as well as of some emerging market currencies. In short, QE is what merits concern not its termination.

Ordinarily, a large surplus puts upward pressure on the country s currency making its exports less competitive and boosting demand for imported goods and services. But a country s authorities can prevent appreciation for a prolonged period of time by buying up foreign currency.

In export products, marketing boards have in the past extracted large surpluses, particularly during periods of international price booms and devaluations.