解答

2007-07-23 日記

22 號問既問題宜家開估，等我quato 返呀sir 比我既e-mail 先

Sir: As explained, all the trade is driven by comparative advantages. Why US buy goods from China, not from S Amercia or other places. Because it is more expensives to buy goods from these regions.
Thus, if US impose tariffs to Chinese goods or RMB appreciates substantially, Goods from China will be more expensive. Thus US will buy goods from other regions, which are more expensive.
In short run, the demand and supply are quite inelastics, thus, the US will buy goods from other areas which are more expensive than that of China before RMB appreication. The result is they will buy more or less the same quatity (due to inelastic nature of demand) and more expensive price from other areas, thus, if their export remains the same, the money value of import will be higher, thereby worsening their trade deficit

Me: Sorry, I understand that your explanation which trade are driven by comparative advantage and the cost of import are higher after RMB appreciates, I just wonder that how about export side of US? US should be export more to China (at least in long run) due to USD depreciate relative to RMB and thus, the increased export revenue should cancel out the increased import cost from other regions. Is this the case?

Sir: There are not only two countries (US and China) in the world. If RMB appreciates, it wil certainly increase imports from the world. However, how we can be sure US will capture most of China's import? Right? When RMB appreciate, all the world will export more to China. Thus, US will only share portion of it. As such, I tend to believe that US's trade deficit will be worse off.

希望大家明白點解。