Category Archives: exchange rates

Fifty Years of Floating

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March 26, 2023 —  This month marks the 50th anniversary of the date, in March 1973, when the dollar, yen, deutschemark, pound, and other major currencies went untethered, their relative values to be determined thenceforth by foreign exchange markets rather than by governments.  The abandonment of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates was generally viewed as a policy failure. The movement from fixed to flexible exchange rates, however, was better viewed as part of a natural long-term process. read more

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The Dollar Dazzles Once More

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September 24, 2022 — The dollar is sky-high.  Since May 2021, it has risen 19 % against Europe’s euro, even reaching 1-to-1 parity in recent weeks. The dollar has appreciated 20 % against Britain’s pound.  And it is up 28 % against Japan’s yen, provoking the Bank of Japan to sell dollars on September 22, essentially the first foreign exchange intervention by a G-7 country since 2011 and the first in the direction of supporting a currency’s value against the dollar since the euro in 2000. read more

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What Three Economists Taught Us About Currency Arrangements

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April 24, 2021 — A generation of great international economists is passing from the scene.  Richard Cooper died on December 23. An American, he was teaching his classes at Harvard until the very end. Robert Mundell, passed away on April 4.  Originally Canadian, he was a winner of the Nobel Prize in economics.  And John Williamson, on April 11. Originally British, he had been the first scholar hired by the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

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