Exchange rate volatility or its stability is a key determinant of the state of a country’s economy. The Ghana cedi’s performance against the US dollar in recent times has been the worse in the past decade. This has ...Exchange rate volatility or its stability is a key determinant of the state of a country’s economy. The Ghana cedi’s performance against the US dollar in recent times has been the worse in the past decade. This has resulted in high inflation, high cost of living and high cost of production in Ghana. Despite the recent economic recovery growth, the cedi continues to strife in high rate of exchange against the dollar. This study examines and models a trend, and makes predictions of future rates of the cedis against the US dollar. Methodology: The study used a 13-year data of exchange rates of Ghana cedi and the US dollar spanning from 2010 to mid-2023 from the Bank of Ghana’s economic data on exchange rates, Ghana Stock Exchange and the World Bank. The ARIMA and SARIMA models were used to model the trends and for forecasting, taking into the consideration the asymmetric and seasonal effect of the data. Results: The outputs show that, the Ghana cedi will continue to rise but steadily against the US dollar for the remaining months of 2023 except in December, and continue to decline afterwards through into 2024. Conclusion: The cedi continues to weaken in value and the strength of its purchasing power. A weaker currency depicts a “junk” economy which affects its foreign investment. As the US dollar continues to rise, the Government and policy makers must implement effective policies to stabilize its rise against the cedi. Export of commodities must increase in addition to import restrictions to balance trade deficit and to strengthen the Ghana Cedi.展开更多
By creating a labor market dynamic general equilibrium model, this paper derives the pass-through mechanism of exchange rate's employment and wage effects,carries out an empirical study on the employment and wage ...By creating a labor market dynamic general equilibrium model, this paper derives the pass-through mechanism of exchange rate's employment and wage effects,carries out an empirical study on the employment and wage effects of RMB exchange rate for manufacturing sectors in China and the United States based on ridge regression, and examines the role of industry characteristics in this process. Research findings suggest that: RMB depreciation will drive employment and wage growth for most of China's laborintensive manufacturing sectors, and RMB appreciation will increase employment for certain capital-and technology-intensive sectors; but RMB depreciation has insignificant employment and wage effects for most sectors in the US. Hence, in achieving the longterm stability of RMB exchange rate, China should take advantage of RMB appreciation's manufacturing upgrade effect and ensure the steady growth of manufacturing employment.The US should make breakthroughs in various links of its economic development in order to tackle unemployment, instead of blaming RMB exchange rate. In addition, the nature of business activities and trade union characteristic are both significant factors that lead to differences in inter-sector employment levels of Chinese and US manufacturing sectors.Technology characteristic and other monopolistic characteristics exert decisive effects on the difference of wage return for various sectors in China and the US.展开更多
This paper aims to detect the underlying regime behind the historical data of the Australian Dollar-U.S.Dollar exchange rate and potential influential factors.Based on academic research and empirical analysis,a series...This paper aims to detect the underlying regime behind the historical data of the Australian Dollar-U.S.Dollar exchange rate and potential influential factors.Based on academic research and empirical analysis,a series of statistical analysis are carried out to capture the significant factors and their channels through which they could exert effects upon the dynamic behaviour of the exchange rate.展开更多
In order to verify that the open bond market is the most direct choice to promote the internationalization of RMB,the empirical analysis method is used to analyze the impact of bond liberalization on the international...In order to verify that the open bond market is the most direct choice to promote the internationalization of RMB,the empirical analysis method is used to analyze the impact of bond liberalization on the internationalization of RMB foreign exchange rate.Firstly,the data source processing method of empirical analysis is introduced.Then the dynamic panel data regression model and panel threshold model are built to verify the influence factors of RMB internationalization foreign exchange rate and the influence of debt market opening on RMB foreign exchange rate,respectively.The results show that the opening of the creditor's rights market has a significant positive promoting effect on the internationalization of RMB foreign exchange rate,and the development of the domestic creditor's rights market has a significant promoting effect on the internationalization of RMB foreign exchange rate.The study has a certain role in promoting the status of China's currency in the international community.展开更多
With the rapid expansion of the RMB exchange rate’s floating range,the effects of the RMB exchange rate and global commodity price changes on China’s stock prices are likely to increase.This study uses both auto reg...With the rapid expansion of the RMB exchange rate’s floating range,the effects of the RMB exchange rate and global commodity price changes on China’s stock prices are likely to increase.This study uses both auto regressive distributed lag(ARDL)and nonlinear ARDL(NARDL)approaches to explore the symmetric and asymmetric effects of the RMB exchange rate and global commodity prices on China’s stock prices.Our findings show that without considering the critical variable of global commodity prices,there is no cointegration relationship between the RMB exchange rate and China’s stock prices,and the coefficient of the RMB exchange rate is not statistically significant.However,when we introduce global commodity prices into the NARDL model,the result shows that the RMB exchange rate has a negative effect on China’s stock prices,that there indeed exists a long-run cointegration relationship among the RMB exchange rate,global commodity prices,and stock prices in the NARDL model,and that global commodity price changes have an asymmetric effect on China’s stock prices in the long run.Specifically,China’s stock prices are more sensitive to increases than decreases in global commodity prices.Thus,increases in global commodity prices cause China’s stock prices to decline sharply.In contrast,the same magnitude of decline in global commodity prices induces a smaller increase in China’s stock prices.展开更多
The exchange rate reform initiated on August 11,2015 is an important attempt by the PBoC to transform China's exchange rate regime from the "crawl-like arrangement" to a floating regime.However,after a t...The exchange rate reform initiated on August 11,2015 is an important attempt by the PBoC to transform China's exchange rate regime from the "crawl-like arrangement" to a floating regime.However,after a three-day experiment,the PBoC abandoned the original goal of the reform.Since then,the central bank has implemented a new exchange rate-setting mechanism.Under this mechanism,the central parity of the renminbi(RMB) against the US dollar is decided by the arithmetic average of the RMB exchange rate that keeps the index of a currency basket unchanged over the past 24 hours and the previous day's closing price of USD/CNY.Due to the introduction of the index of a currency basket,additional uncertainty has been introduced into the determination of the RMB exchange rate,because of the uncertainty of the dollar index(USDX).As a result,to a certain extent,the one-way bet on the RMB expectations is weakened.However,the current exchange rate formation mechanism cannot reverse the trend of devaluation of the RMB,nor can it eliminate depreciation expectations.Meanwhile,it hinders the effectiveness of central bank's independent monetary policy based on the domestic economic fundamentals.And also,the "two-way float" created by the new price-setting mechanism is artificial and has led to significant losses of foreign exchange reserve.The paper explains how the new price-setting mechanism works,and identifies the important features of the mechanism and its pros and cons.The paper argues that despite some advantages,the new exchange rate regime as a soft peg regime is not sustainable and the PBoC should stop foreign exchange market intervention as soon as possible.We hope that the PBoC can learn the lessons from the failure of the "August 11 reform" and accomplish the unaccomplished reform in an urgent manner.展开更多
Based on time series data of RMB exchange rate and urban-rural income, this paper makes an empirical study for the influence of RMB exchange rate fluctuation on urban-rural income by utilizing rolling regression model...Based on time series data of RMB exchange rate and urban-rural income, this paper makes an empirical study for the influence of RMB exchange rate fluctuation on urban-rural income by utilizing rolling regression model through direct and indirect transmission mechanisms. According to the results, the transmission effect of RMB exchange rate fluctuation on urban-rural income has features of incompleteness and asymmetry. Moreover, RMB appreciation will help to reduce the urban-rural income gap. Therefore, this paper suggests that the Chinese economy should accelerate the course of transforming mode, adjusting structure and promoting development under the new normal. Meanwhile, reform of RMB exchange rate mechanism should be promoted, living standard of residents must be improved, and the urban-rural income gap should be reduced.展开更多
China is transitioning its industrial structure from labor-and resource-intensive industries that previously contributed significantly to the country’s GDP growth to technology-intensive industries emphasizing a high...China is transitioning its industrial structure from labor-and resource-intensive industries that previously contributed significantly to the country’s GDP growth to technology-intensive industries emphasizing a highly-skilled workforce and sustainability to achieve high-quality economic growth.This paper examines the impact of the RMB exchange rate on high-quality economic growth through theoretical modeling and empirical analysis and discusses the variable of overseas education to explore the mechanism of how the RMB exchange rate and overseas education jointly impact high-quality economic growth.The research sample includes the National Bureau of Statistics data on education from 1995 to 2015,the Bank for International Settlements(BIS)data on the RMB exchange rate,and the added value of China’s high-quality economic growth estimated based on the national economy data.An empirical analysis of theoretical expectations was conducted,finding that RMB appreciation could make a positive contribution to China’s high-quality economic growth;RMB exchange rate fluctuations would impact the relative cost of overseas education and overseas returnees could have a positive impact on domestic resource utilization efficiency and domestic capacity to make sci-tech innovations,thereby injecting vitality to high-quality economic growth.This study focuses on both the RMB exchange rate and the population studying abroad,providing additional observation dimensions to existing research.展开更多
In order to aim at improving the forecasting performance of the RMB/USD exchange rate, this paper proposes a new architecture of fuzzy neural networks based on fuzzy logic, and the method of point differential, which ...In order to aim at improving the forecasting performance of the RMB/USD exchange rate, this paper proposes a new architecture of fuzzy neural networks based on fuzzy logic, and the method of point differential, which guarantees not only the direction of weight correction, but also the needed precision for the BP algorithm. In applying genetic algorithms for optimal performance, this approach, in the forecasting of the RMB/USD real exchange rate from 1994 to 2000, obviously outperforms typical BP Neural Networks and exhibits a higher capacity in regard to nonlinear, time-variablility, and illegibility of the exchange rate.展开更多
Exchange rate, as a link between international markets, integrates the economies of all countries. In today's economic globalization, exchange rate plays an important role. It is one of the most effective ways to ...Exchange rate, as a link between international markets, integrates the economies of all countries. In today's economic globalization, exchange rate plays an important role. It is one of the most effective ways to regulate the international economy, and also one of the most direct means. In this paper, based on the definition, classification and role of exchange rate, the impacts of RMB exchange rate on China's export trade after the "exchange rate reform" were studied, and the measures that China should take to deal with the impact of the continuous appreciation of RMB on imports and exports under the current environment were proposed. This paper hopes to further expand China's foreign trade.展开更多
Based on this global environment, this essay will first present basic concepts of RMB exchange rate policy and its evolutionhistory, then discuss some important challenges from the global perspective that the Chinese ...Based on this global environment, this essay will first present basic concepts of RMB exchange rate policy and its evolutionhistory, then discuss some important challenges from the global perspective that the Chinese government meets in terms of the increasinglyundervalued exchange rate, thirdly argue that China cannot take a substantial appreciation, Finally discuss whether China should take a gradualappreciation by comparing its advantages and disadvantages.展开更多
Movement of the renminbi (RMB) exchange rate is not only affected by economic factors, but also by political factors home and aboard. This paper analyzes the transmission mechanism of political cycles on the RMB exc...Movement of the renminbi (RMB) exchange rate is not only affected by economic factors, but also by political factors home and aboard. This paper analyzes the transmission mechanism of political cycles on the RMB exchange rate first, and then sets up a "political cycle spillover effect model" followed by an empirical analysis. We find that: (1) the US political cycle has a direct effect on the RMB exchange rate in the short run, which is mainly transmitted by capital flows and China's exchange rate policy control; (2) the RMB exchange rate changes periodically in accordance with the US presidential election and midterm election cycle, with the appreciation ratio significantly lower in the first year of the election cycle, while significantly higher in the year after the midterm election; (3) The effect of the political cycle will not be affected by which party holds power, though it will be affected if the president and parliament are ruled by the same party. This paper not only extends the research of the influencing factors of the RMB exchange rate to the political field, but also sets up a use theoretical model to analyze the impact of political issues on the RMB exchange rate, providing a new perspective to fully understand the external environment of RMB exchange rate reform.展开更多
The indicator of social financing scale(SFS)has become a new intermediate target for China’s socioeconomic regulation since 2011,which has a better tracking performance on important economic indicators such as CPI an...The indicator of social financing scale(SFS)has become a new intermediate target for China’s socioeconomic regulation since 2011,which has a better tracking performance on important economic indicators such as CPI and is also the new intermediate target of monetary policy used by China’s central bank to replace M2 at present.So,is there an impact of the social financing scale on another important economic indicator,the RMB exchange rate?This paper conducted an OLS regression analysis of the time series data of social financing scale and the nominal effective exchange rate(NEER)of RMB for a total of 61 months from October 2016 to October 2021 and find that SFS has a significant positive impact on the exchange rate of RMB.This result means that the expansion of SFS will lead to the appreciation of RMB.In addition,the paper fills the research gap on the combination of SFS and RMB exchange rate,and suggests that mechanisms such as monetary policy or domestic interest rates may be responsible for this correlation at the theoretical level.展开更多
Instability in the worm dollar standard, as most recently manifested in the US Federal Reserve's near-zero interest rate policy, has caused consternation in emerging markets with naturally higher interest rates. Chin...Instability in the worm dollar standard, as most recently manifested in the US Federal Reserve's near-zero interest rate policy, has caused consternation in emerging markets with naturally higher interest rates. China has been provoked into speeding RMB "internationalization "; that is, opening up domestic financial markets to reduce its dependence on the US dollar for invoicing trade and making international payments. However, despite rapid percentage growth in offshore financial markets in RMB, the Chinese authorities are essentially trapped into maintaining exchange controls (reinforced by financial repression in domestic interest rates) to avoid an avalanche of foreign capital inflows that would threaten inflation and asset price bubbles by driving nominal interest rates on RMB assets down further. Because a floating (appreciating) exchange rate could attract even more hot money inflows, the People's Bank of China should focus on keeping the yuan/dollar rate stable so as to encourage naturally high wage increases to help balance China "s international competitiveness. However, further internationalization of the RMB, as with the proposed Shanghai pilot free trade zone, is best deferred until world interest rates rise to more normal levels.展开更多
文摘Exchange rate volatility or its stability is a key determinant of the state of a country’s economy. The Ghana cedi’s performance against the US dollar in recent times has been the worse in the past decade. This has resulted in high inflation, high cost of living and high cost of production in Ghana. Despite the recent economic recovery growth, the cedi continues to strife in high rate of exchange against the dollar. This study examines and models a trend, and makes predictions of future rates of the cedis against the US dollar. Methodology: The study used a 13-year data of exchange rates of Ghana cedi and the US dollar spanning from 2010 to mid-2023 from the Bank of Ghana’s economic data on exchange rates, Ghana Stock Exchange and the World Bank. The ARIMA and SARIMA models were used to model the trends and for forecasting, taking into the consideration the asymmetric and seasonal effect of the data. Results: The outputs show that, the Ghana cedi will continue to rise but steadily against the US dollar for the remaining months of 2023 except in December, and continue to decline afterwards through into 2024. Conclusion: The cedi continues to weaken in value and the strength of its purchasing power. A weaker currency depicts a “junk” economy which affects its foreign investment. As the US dollar continues to rise, the Government and policy makers must implement effective policies to stabilize its rise against the cedi. Export of commodities must increase in addition to import restrictions to balance trade deficit and to strengthen the Ghana Cedi.
文摘By creating a labor market dynamic general equilibrium model, this paper derives the pass-through mechanism of exchange rate's employment and wage effects,carries out an empirical study on the employment and wage effects of RMB exchange rate for manufacturing sectors in China and the United States based on ridge regression, and examines the role of industry characteristics in this process. Research findings suggest that: RMB depreciation will drive employment and wage growth for most of China's laborintensive manufacturing sectors, and RMB appreciation will increase employment for certain capital-and technology-intensive sectors; but RMB depreciation has insignificant employment and wage effects for most sectors in the US. Hence, in achieving the longterm stability of RMB exchange rate, China should take advantage of RMB appreciation's manufacturing upgrade effect and ensure the steady growth of manufacturing employment.The US should make breakthroughs in various links of its economic development in order to tackle unemployment, instead of blaming RMB exchange rate. In addition, the nature of business activities and trade union characteristic are both significant factors that lead to differences in inter-sector employment levels of Chinese and US manufacturing sectors.Technology characteristic and other monopolistic characteristics exert decisive effects on the difference of wage return for various sectors in China and the US.
文摘This paper aims to detect the underlying regime behind the historical data of the Australian Dollar-U.S.Dollar exchange rate and potential influential factors.Based on academic research and empirical analysis,a series of statistical analysis are carried out to capture the significant factors and their channels through which they could exert effects upon the dynamic behaviour of the exchange rate.
文摘In order to verify that the open bond market is the most direct choice to promote the internationalization of RMB,the empirical analysis method is used to analyze the impact of bond liberalization on the internationalization of RMB foreign exchange rate.Firstly,the data source processing method of empirical analysis is introduced.Then the dynamic panel data regression model and panel threshold model are built to verify the influence factors of RMB internationalization foreign exchange rate and the influence of debt market opening on RMB foreign exchange rate,respectively.The results show that the opening of the creditor's rights market has a significant positive promoting effect on the internationalization of RMB foreign exchange rate,and the development of the domestic creditor's rights market has a significant promoting effect on the internationalization of RMB foreign exchange rate.The study has a certain role in promoting the status of China's currency in the international community.
基金supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities(2019CDSKXYGG0042,2018CDXYGG0054,2020CDJSK01HQ01)National Social Science Funds(16CJL007).
文摘With the rapid expansion of the RMB exchange rate’s floating range,the effects of the RMB exchange rate and global commodity price changes on China’s stock prices are likely to increase.This study uses both auto regressive distributed lag(ARDL)and nonlinear ARDL(NARDL)approaches to explore the symmetric and asymmetric effects of the RMB exchange rate and global commodity prices on China’s stock prices.Our findings show that without considering the critical variable of global commodity prices,there is no cointegration relationship between the RMB exchange rate and China’s stock prices,and the coefficient of the RMB exchange rate is not statistically significant.However,when we introduce global commodity prices into the NARDL model,the result shows that the RMB exchange rate has a negative effect on China’s stock prices,that there indeed exists a long-run cointegration relationship among the RMB exchange rate,global commodity prices,and stock prices in the NARDL model,and that global commodity price changes have an asymmetric effect on China’s stock prices in the long run.Specifically,China’s stock prices are more sensitive to increases than decreases in global commodity prices.Thus,increases in global commodity prices cause China’s stock prices to decline sharply.In contrast,the same magnitude of decline in global commodity prices induces a smaller increase in China’s stock prices.
文摘The exchange rate reform initiated on August 11,2015 is an important attempt by the PBoC to transform China's exchange rate regime from the "crawl-like arrangement" to a floating regime.However,after a three-day experiment,the PBoC abandoned the original goal of the reform.Since then,the central bank has implemented a new exchange rate-setting mechanism.Under this mechanism,the central parity of the renminbi(RMB) against the US dollar is decided by the arithmetic average of the RMB exchange rate that keeps the index of a currency basket unchanged over the past 24 hours and the previous day's closing price of USD/CNY.Due to the introduction of the index of a currency basket,additional uncertainty has been introduced into the determination of the RMB exchange rate,because of the uncertainty of the dollar index(USDX).As a result,to a certain extent,the one-way bet on the RMB expectations is weakened.However,the current exchange rate formation mechanism cannot reverse the trend of devaluation of the RMB,nor can it eliminate depreciation expectations.Meanwhile,it hinders the effectiveness of central bank's independent monetary policy based on the domestic economic fundamentals.And also,the "two-way float" created by the new price-setting mechanism is artificial and has led to significant losses of foreign exchange reserve.The paper explains how the new price-setting mechanism works,and identifies the important features of the mechanism and its pros and cons.The paper argues that despite some advantages,the new exchange rate regime as a soft peg regime is not sustainable and the PBoC should stop foreign exchange market intervention as soon as possible.We hope that the PBoC can learn the lessons from the failure of the "August 11 reform" and accomplish the unaccomplished reform in an urgent manner.
文摘Based on time series data of RMB exchange rate and urban-rural income, this paper makes an empirical study for the influence of RMB exchange rate fluctuation on urban-rural income by utilizing rolling regression model through direct and indirect transmission mechanisms. According to the results, the transmission effect of RMB exchange rate fluctuation on urban-rural income has features of incompleteness and asymmetry. Moreover, RMB appreciation will help to reduce the urban-rural income gap. Therefore, this paper suggests that the Chinese economy should accelerate the course of transforming mode, adjusting structure and promoting development under the new normal. Meanwhile, reform of RMB exchange rate mechanism should be promoted, living standard of residents must be improved, and the urban-rural income gap should be reduced.
文摘China is transitioning its industrial structure from labor-and resource-intensive industries that previously contributed significantly to the country’s GDP growth to technology-intensive industries emphasizing a highly-skilled workforce and sustainability to achieve high-quality economic growth.This paper examines the impact of the RMB exchange rate on high-quality economic growth through theoretical modeling and empirical analysis and discusses the variable of overseas education to explore the mechanism of how the RMB exchange rate and overseas education jointly impact high-quality economic growth.The research sample includes the National Bureau of Statistics data on education from 1995 to 2015,the Bank for International Settlements(BIS)data on the RMB exchange rate,and the added value of China’s high-quality economic growth estimated based on the national economy data.An empirical analysis of theoretical expectations was conducted,finding that RMB appreciation could make a positive contribution to China’s high-quality economic growth;RMB exchange rate fluctuations would impact the relative cost of overseas education and overseas returnees could have a positive impact on domestic resource utilization efficiency and domestic capacity to make sci-tech innovations,thereby injecting vitality to high-quality economic growth.This study focuses on both the RMB exchange rate and the population studying abroad,providing additional observation dimensions to existing research.
文摘In order to aim at improving the forecasting performance of the RMB/USD exchange rate, this paper proposes a new architecture of fuzzy neural networks based on fuzzy logic, and the method of point differential, which guarantees not only the direction of weight correction, but also the needed precision for the BP algorithm. In applying genetic algorithms for optimal performance, this approach, in the forecasting of the RMB/USD real exchange rate from 1994 to 2000, obviously outperforms typical BP Neural Networks and exhibits a higher capacity in regard to nonlinear, time-variablility, and illegibility of the exchange rate.
文摘Exchange rate, as a link between international markets, integrates the economies of all countries. In today's economic globalization, exchange rate plays an important role. It is one of the most effective ways to regulate the international economy, and also one of the most direct means. In this paper, based on the definition, classification and role of exchange rate, the impacts of RMB exchange rate on China's export trade after the "exchange rate reform" were studied, and the measures that China should take to deal with the impact of the continuous appreciation of RMB on imports and exports under the current environment were proposed. This paper hopes to further expand China's foreign trade.
文摘Based on this global environment, this essay will first present basic concepts of RMB exchange rate policy and its evolutionhistory, then discuss some important challenges from the global perspective that the Chinese government meets in terms of the increasinglyundervalued exchange rate, thirdly argue that China cannot take a substantial appreciation, Finally discuss whether China should take a gradualappreciation by comparing its advantages and disadvantages.
文摘Movement of the renminbi (RMB) exchange rate is not only affected by economic factors, but also by political factors home and aboard. This paper analyzes the transmission mechanism of political cycles on the RMB exchange rate first, and then sets up a "political cycle spillover effect model" followed by an empirical analysis. We find that: (1) the US political cycle has a direct effect on the RMB exchange rate in the short run, which is mainly transmitted by capital flows and China's exchange rate policy control; (2) the RMB exchange rate changes periodically in accordance with the US presidential election and midterm election cycle, with the appreciation ratio significantly lower in the first year of the election cycle, while significantly higher in the year after the midterm election; (3) The effect of the political cycle will not be affected by which party holds power, though it will be affected if the president and parliament are ruled by the same party. This paper not only extends the research of the influencing factors of the RMB exchange rate to the political field, but also sets up a use theoretical model to analyze the impact of political issues on the RMB exchange rate, providing a new perspective to fully understand the external environment of RMB exchange rate reform.
文摘The indicator of social financing scale(SFS)has become a new intermediate target for China’s socioeconomic regulation since 2011,which has a better tracking performance on important economic indicators such as CPI and is also the new intermediate target of monetary policy used by China’s central bank to replace M2 at present.So,is there an impact of the social financing scale on another important economic indicator,the RMB exchange rate?This paper conducted an OLS regression analysis of the time series data of social financing scale and the nominal effective exchange rate(NEER)of RMB for a total of 61 months from October 2016 to October 2021 and find that SFS has a significant positive impact on the exchange rate of RMB.This result means that the expansion of SFS will lead to the appreciation of RMB.In addition,the paper fills the research gap on the combination of SFS and RMB exchange rate,and suggests that mechanisms such as monetary policy or domestic interest rates may be responsible for this correlation at the theoretical level.
文摘Instability in the worm dollar standard, as most recently manifested in the US Federal Reserve's near-zero interest rate policy, has caused consternation in emerging markets with naturally higher interest rates. China has been provoked into speeding RMB "internationalization "; that is, opening up domestic financial markets to reduce its dependence on the US dollar for invoicing trade and making international payments. However, despite rapid percentage growth in offshore financial markets in RMB, the Chinese authorities are essentially trapped into maintaining exchange controls (reinforced by financial repression in domestic interest rates) to avoid an avalanche of foreign capital inflows that would threaten inflation and asset price bubbles by driving nominal interest rates on RMB assets down further. Because a floating (appreciating) exchange rate could attract even more hot money inflows, the People's Bank of China should focus on keeping the yuan/dollar rate stable so as to encourage naturally high wage increases to help balance China "s international competitiveness. However, further internationalization of the RMB, as with the proposed Shanghai pilot free trade zone, is best deferred until world interest rates rise to more normal levels.