| Ronald McKinnon, a professor of Stanford University, one of the most prestigious economists in the world, and the initiator of the Theory of Financial Deepening and Optimal Currency Area. He has long been providing professional advisory services for IMF, the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and the governments of developing countries on monetary policies and economic and financial development. In the works of Professor McKinnon such as The Order of Economic Liberation: Financial Control in the Transition to a Market Economy and Money and Capital in Economic Development, the former proposes the order of policy-making in financial liberation, and has caused profound influence on the study of economic theory in China, and the latter gives successful analysis of the harm brought about by financial repression and lays the groundwork for the theory of financial development. After the Asian financial crisis in 1997, McKinnon has proposed the East Asian Dollar Standard (EADS). This dissertation, based on McKinnon's new work Exchange Rates under the East Asian Dollar Standard: Living with Conflicted Virtue, carries out an in-depth analysis into McKinnon's theory about taking the U.S. dollar as the anchor currency for East Asian currencies, difficulties under EADS, and his suggested policies and opinions of reducing exchange rate fluctuation in East Asia and maintaining financial stability.Since the end of Second Word War, the United States has developed a strong economic strength and a sound financial system, and these ensured the position of U.S. dollar as the standard currency in the international trade and payment. Among the academic community, a largely recognized view holds that the international exchange rate regime of Post-Bretton Woods system actually takes U.S. dollar as the standard currency, and dollarization, currency board system and various dollar-pegging systems are just embodying a fixed exchange rate system of the dollar standard.The dissertation takes China, an East Asian economy, and Southeast Asian economies such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippine, Singapore, as the objects for research. The key countries for research will not include South Korea and Japan. The East Asian economies, if not particularly specified, are mentioned by a narrow sense as defined hereinafter and exclude Japan and South Korea. The exchange rate arrangements of the East Asian economies are featured by the Dollar Standard to a great extent. According to the empirical analysis of Ronald McKinnon, the embodiment of such a trend is that the East Asian economies, including Mainland China, China Hong Kong, China Taiwan, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippine, Singapore and Thailand, all adopt an export-oriented industrial policy and pursue prudent domestic monetary and fiscal policies. Before the Asian Financial Crisis during 1997 and 1998, the East Asian economies but Japan unexceptionally pegged their currencies to the U.S. dollar. These economies chose their pegging to the dollar as the nominal anchor to stabilize the export-oriented economy of East Asia. In the financial crisis, most economies (except China Hong Kong and Malaysia) temporarily suspended the pegging-dollar exchange rate arrangements. After the crisis, the East Asian economies resumed those arrangements but with a higher level of fluctuation that can be caused by the dollar to their respective currencies than prior to the crisis, and a more flexible exchange rate adjustment mechanism was adopted. McKinnon defined these phenomena as the East Asian Dollar Standard (EADS).However, in a complicated and volatile international financial environment, the East Asian economies have undergone and now still face many impacts and challenges from the outside, such as the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997, the constant pressure on excessive dollar reserve and appreciation of local currency since 2000, the global financial storm triggered by the increasingly heated subprime crisis. The fixed exchange rate mechanism with soft pegging to the dollar is actually a secondary choice made out of"Fear of Floating"and"Original Sin". Due to such a choice, the East Asian economies are confronted with a lot of difficulties and problems, including the problem of"conflicted virtue"brought forward by McKinnon. Therefore, under the historic trend of the integration of regional economy and globalization, with the exchange rate as a core variable of an open economy, the choice of foreign exchange regime is of vital importance to the East Asian developing countries. The fragility of the financial systems of East Asian economies, to some extent, stems from the choice of the foreign exchange regime.The dissertation consists of seven chapters. The first chapter is the introduction. It introduces the background of the topic-picking and its practical meaning, the status quo of this research among the academic community, the major methodology of the dissertation, and its originalities and limitations.The second chapter, with the guide of Marxist financial theory, reviews the theories of the dollar standard by McKinnon and other economists, and compares and analyzes the fundamental differences between the dollar standard of East Asia, the gold standard and Bretton Woods system. Compared with the gold standard and Bretton Woods system, a key difference in respect of the dollar standard is that the dollars largely reserved by the countries do not need to be supported by real matters such as gold. America can make a large amount of credit to maintain its economic system, and achieve this goal by creating various financial instruments, the U.S. subprime credit bonds that caused the current global financial turbulence as an instance. Under the dollar standard, America can issue unlimited credit, and this is how the dollar standard causes financial risks.The third chapter starts to talk about the inherent drawbacks of the dollar standard, and states that the fixed exchange rate regime of soft dollar-pegging is a choice out of no choice for East Asia. Faced with the imbalance of international payments, whether deficits or surpluses, the East Asian economies have to take the pressure of economic imbalance and adjustment. In the event of deficits in the international payments, the fixed exchange rate regime of soft dollar-pegging is difficult to maintain, the local currency has the pressure to depreciate, and the outflow of the hot money leads the economy to recession, just like what happened in Asian Financial Crisis of 1997. In the event of favorable balance, the East Asian economies will, on the other hand, experience"conflicted virtue". The local currency has the pressure to appreciate, and if it surrenders to such pressure, the export volume will go down and deflation happens. The economy will be more probable to get into recession and the liquidity trap of Japanese economy. Therefore, the balance in the international payments is crucial for the stability of the exchange rate and the exchange rate mechanism of East Asia exists in a fragile balance system.The forth chapter focuses on the currency anchor as a value standard– dollar is unstable; after the disaggregation of Bretton Woods system, America, rather than taking any responsibilities, makes use of the monopoly of dollar standard in global economy, expands its credit, causes serious economic imbalance in the East Asian economies and itself, and increases the difficulty for the East Asian economies to adopt their policies in balancing their external and internal economic objectives. This chapter particularly analyzes the current subprime crisis in the U.S. and its influence on the East Asian economies.The fifth chapter mainly analyzes the influence on the exchange rate system of the East Asian economies by external exchange rate movement, and makes it clear that the fluctuation of the exchange rate of Yen/Dollar influenced the stability of the exchange rate system of East Asia. When the Yen depreciated, the East Asian economies were in their economic concession. The decrease in the export competency curbed the growth of the export-oriented economies, and the decreased Japanese Yen direct investment also brought potential influence on the development of the real economy of East Asia. On the other hand, when the Yen appreciated, the East Asian economies were in their rapid economic growth. The increase in the export competency promoted the economic growth, and the Yen direct investment proved to be a powerhouse for the economic development of the East Asian economies. This chapter also looks back at the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997, and proposes that the Crisis can be in some sense attributed to the depreciation of Yen in mid 1990s. The arbitrage on Yen boosted the excessive credit in Southeast Asian countries and lured these countries away from the development of real economy, just like the case of the subprime crisis in the U.S.The sixth chapter illustrates that, under the EADS, China's stable exchange rate has enhanced the economic stability of China and East Asia, and the trade deficit of America stems, to a great extent, from its export control. This chapter also refutes McKinnon's view that China's foreign exchange reserve has caused the global deflation. Most of China's foreign exchanges were used to purchase the treasury bonds and financial instruments issued by America, and this has created the backflow of dollars. Therefore, the international liquidity has not been harmed by China's foreign exchange reserves. Therefore, the reform of China's exchange rate regime, especially the financial liberation and the lifting of restrictions on capital projects, shall be taken in a discreet manner to secure the stable growth of China's economy.The seventh chapter conducts a theoretical analysis based on the optimum currency area theory and points out that the dollar standard is a short-term choice of the East Asian economies. It suggests some specific measures to alleviate the difficulties and problems brought to the East Asian economies by the dollar standard. The East Asian dollar standard is merely a transitional arrangement. The core target of the East Asian economic integration is to create a uniform"Asian Currency". The chapter analyzes the choice of China for exchange rate arrangement under the existence of EADS, the position and the future strategy in the process of East Asian currency integration.The last comes to a conclusion based on the theories and case studies in the previous seven chapters. It holds that, as the U.S. dollar is still predominant in international trade and payment, the"soft"dollar peg system in the East Asia is a practical choice made out of no choice, and effective reform must be carried out to make up for the shortcomings of the dollar standard. This dissertation agrees with McKinnon's judgment that the resumption of fixed exchange rates by East Asian economies is a reasonable choice, accolades his objection against the appreciation of RMB, and holds that keeping the East Asian exchange rates stable is beneficial for Asian and global economic stability. The dissertation fiercely criticizes that, as an American economist, McKinnon, on behalf of American, intends to conceal the accountability of American for the turmoil of international currency system, evades the topic that America is taking its power with the U.S. dollar and getting its interest at the cost of international mutual benefit, which is embodied by its non-cooperation policy. As America adopts an unilateral policy, under the EADS, the exchange rate system of East Asian economies is in a balance of extreme fragility and is faced with problems such as"conflicted virtue". Therefore, effective policies and measures must be taken to alleviate the defects of the dollar standard. This dissertation also suggests that, although the subprime crisis of America has damaged the credit of the U.S. dollar, but it is impossible to resume the gold standard or Bretton Woods system. After the attack of subprime crisis, America might consider abandoning the non-cooperation policy and cooperate with other countries including China to establish a new international monetary system based on credit. Finally, the East Asia shall develop a uniform currency system and effect the transition from Dollar Standard to"Asian Currency". China shall play a core role therein.
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