esto es la globalización, reloaded

Cuando escribimos este libro, una de nuestras motivaciones era pensar una economía en la que la política monetaria no altera en absoluto las tasas de interés relevantes para el consumo y para la inversión, sino que influye sobre la economía únicamente a través del tipo de cambio: la política expansiva no es expansiva porque baje las tasas, sino porque deprecia la moneda y así estimula las exportaciones y la sustitución de importaciones. No nos imáginabamos que exactamente eso iba a decirse sobre la economía norteamericana dos años después. Escribe Krugman:

Right now, Ben and co. are trying desperately to get a grip on the economy’s problems. One big part of their loss of grip is that cuts in the interest rates they can control aren’t translating into reductions in the interest rates that matter for the economy. In particular, they know that the most important channel through which monetary policy affects the economy is housing — and the Fed’s cuts have not succeeded in producing easier mortgage credit, because the financial system has been falling apart.

But the US is an “open economy” — we do a lot of trade with the rest of the world — and there’s another important channel for monetary policy: low interest rates tend to cause a low dollar, which is good for net exports. In fact, the decline in the non-oil trade deficit is one of the few bright spots in the US economic picture. So the second panel in the graphic doesn’t show a failure of policy — it shows the one area in which monetary policy is working! In fact, if a weak dollar wasn’t helping net exports, we’d be in much worse shape than we are.