Analysis and discussions of Chinaís external sector and its implications for global
imbalancesñboth in academic circles and among policy makersñappear to have an
underlying tension embedded in them. On the one hand, many analysts argue that
Chinaís exchange rate is considerably undervalued and that it needs to appreciate
for the current account balance to adjust to a path that can be sustained permanently.
On the other hand, a number of analysts also question whether exchange
rate appreciation would really have that much of an e§ect on Chinese exports because
of the high content of imports in Chinese exports. There have been some
but not too many empirical studies that have directly estimated the sensitivity of
Chinese exports to real exchange rate changes in the actual experience of the Chinese
economy. A few of these studies have argued that the distinction between
non-processed and processed exports is important in this regard. However, these
studies have come up with di§erent answers and, generally, because of the time
when they were conducted, they do not incorporate the experience over much of the
period since the revaluation of the RMB-dollar peg in mid-2005.
This paper has provided estimates of the sensitivity of Chinese exports to changes
in the exchange rate, distinguishing between processed and non-processed exports,
as in some of the other studies, and using data up to mid-2009. The results show
that there has been signiÖcant variation in the trade-weighted real exchange rate over
time and movements in the exchange rate substantially a§ect export growth in the
direction predicted by theory; that is a greater exchange rate appreciation dampens
export growth, and our estimated price elasticity is generally greater than unity,
and towards the high end of elasticities found in previous work. Both processing
and non-processing exports are found to be sensitive to real exchange rate changes.
We also obtained some results which strongly suggest that it matters which
trading partners of China are the source of the real exchange rate changes. Specifically,
since China imports most of its inputs and parts and components from other
emerging Asian economies, appreciations against their currencies have an ambiguous
predicted e§ect on Chinese processing exports. On the one hand, these countries
being direct consumers of Chinese exports, should be buying less of Chinese exports
if they become more expensive to them. On the other hand, with a more appreciated
RMB against these other Asian currencies, the imported inputs also become
cheaper to China, which shifts out the supply of processing exports and increases
their equilibrium quantity. By contrast, the e§ect of an appreciation of the Chinese
currency against the currencies of its advanced-economy trading partners should
unambiguously reduce both Chinese processing and non-processing exports. The
empirical results are generally consistent with these predictionsñthere is a signiÖcant
negative e§ect on exports of Chinese RMB appreciation against the currencies of
Chinaís advanced-economy trading partners, and there is a positive but statistically
insigniÖcant e§ect on processing exports of Chinese RMB appreciation against other
emerging Asian currencies.
The counterfactual simulations that were undertaken suggest that if the rate of
real appreciation of the trade-weighted renminbi had been 10 percent at an annual
rate from 2005:3 to 2009:2 instead of the annual rate of 5 1
2
percent actually observed,
on average, over this period, Chinese real exports in the middle of 2009 would have
been roughly 30 percent less than they actually were.
The implications of the results for global imbalances depend on what is exactly
meant by global imbalances, which is not always clear-cut. If Chinaís large current
account surplus or its bilateral current account surplus with the United States by
itself contributes to global imbalances, along with the U.S. bilateral current account
deÖcit with China, then our results suggest that greater degree of appreciation of the
Chinese currency would substantially help mitigate global imbalances. If, however,
the big part of global imbalances is the U.S. overall current account deÖcit and the
current account surplus of the emerging market world taken together, then it is less
clear that greater appreciation of the Chinese currency would make a signiÖcant
dent to global imbalances. For example, following an adjustment of the Chinese
real exchange rate one scenario could well be that the fall in exports by China is
largely matched by a rise in exports by other emerging market economies, including
in emerging Asia, leaving aggregate current account balances of the United States
and of emerging market economies more broadly unchanged.
But the results do seem to imply that greater áexibility of the exchange rate
would help China toward its stated desired goal of shifting the sources of growth
more toward domestic demand with less dependence on external demand