美国卡特政府汇率政策制定的政治经济逻辑

Political and Economic Logic of Exchange Rate Policy Making in the Carter Administration

卡特时期是美国同时面对国际国内重大危机时,利用汇率政策动员国际国内资源应对危机的典型代表时期。研究卡特政府时期美国汇率政策制定的政治经济逻辑具有重要的现实意义。卡特政府在继承的制度遗产基础上,及外部冲击与内部博弈的双重作用下,与市场的互动共同促成了美国汇率政策的制定。从国际层面上看,卡特政府调整汇率政策的目标在于阻止美元的过度贬值,防止引发西方盟友间竞争性贬值,防止诱发盟友体系的分裂,以此在苏联的全球攻势下更好地维护美国体系的霸权地位;从国内层面来看,其汇率政策是为了隔离过度宽松的货币政策所导致的大通胀对美元贬值的影响。

The Carter years were a special period when the U.S. utilized exchange rate policy with internal and external resources to cope with domestic and overseas crises simultaneously. A research of the political and economic logic of the Carter administration's exchange rate policy-making has its practical significance. This paper argues that the interplays between the Carter administration and the market determined the process of the Carter administration's exchange rate policy-making on the basis of the institutional legacy inherited from Carter's predecessors and under the dual effects of external shocks and internal interactions. The goal of the Carter administration's exchange rate policy on the international level was to avoid rapid devaluation of the U.S. dollar which might cause the split of American allies and to maintain U.S. hegemony; on the domestic level it was to isolate the effects of inflation caused by exceedingly loose monetary policy against the devaluation of the U.S. dollar.