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Will RMB appreciation reduce trade deficit in the US?

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  • James Zhang

Abstract

Although the Renminbi (RMB) appreciated by more than 25% against the US dollar in nominal terms between 2005 and 2011, China's exports continued to grow, leading to a surplus, representing approximately for 10% of its GDP. This paper assesses the major explanations for the surge of China's exports and trade surplus and tackles the issue of whether an appreciation of the RMB would help the US to reduce its trade deficits. After conducting simulation exercises on the multi-country macro-econometric Fair model, this paper offers some new explanations for the unexpected surge in China's trade surplus, namely a low overall price elasticity and a high domestic income elasticity for the tradable goods in both countries, and a consequential sluggish price pass-through process of the RMB appreciation on the US market. It thus questions the effectiveness of RMB appreciation as an instrument to restore the trade balance between China and the US.

Suggested Citation

  • James Zhang, 2012. "Will RMB appreciation reduce trade deficit in the US?," Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(1), pages 171-187.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:rjapxx:v:17:y:2012:i:1:p:171-187
    DOI: 10.1080/13547860.2012.640021
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    Cited by:

    1. Sabrine Ferjani & Sami Saafi & Ridha Nouira & Christophe Rault, 2022. "The Impacts of the Dollar-Renminbi Exchange Rate Misalignment on the China-United States Commodity Trade: An Asymmetric Analysis," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 20(3), pages 507-554, September.
    2. ABBAS, Shah & Nguyen, V.C. & YANFU, Zhu & Nguyen, Huu Tinh, 2020. "The Impact of China Exchange Rate Policy on its Trading Partners Evidence Based on the GVAR Model," OSF Preprints cwvqb, Center for Open Science.
    3. Chi, Junwook, 2016. "Exchange rate and transport cost sensitivities of bilateral freight flows between the US and China," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 1-13.
    4. Hurley, Dene T. & Papanikolaou, Nikolaos, 2021. "Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) analysis of U.S.-China commodity trade dynamics," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 454-467.
    5. Thanh, Su Dinh & Canh, Nguyen Phuc & Doytch, Nadia, 2020. "Asymmetric effects of U.S. monetary policy on the U.S. bilateral trade deficit with China: A Markov switching ARDL model approach," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 22(C).
    6. Dene T. Hurley & Nikolaos Papanikolaou, 2018. "An Investigation of China‐U.S. Bilateral Trade and Exchange Rate Changes Using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 37(2), pages 162-179, June.

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