Is it accurate to think of a fixed exchange rate as a simultaneous price ceiling and price floor? Explain.

Short Answer

Expert verified

Due to an unchanged quantity of exports and imports of goods or services in a fixed-exchange-rate regime, the statement is true that a fixed exchange rate can be simultaneously considered a price ceiling and price floor in an economy

Step by step solution

01

Price ceiling and a price floor

The government enacts price controls to regulate prices. A price ceiling keeps a price rising above the market level, while a price floor keeps a price falling below the market level.

A price ceiling is a legal maximum price a consumer pays for some goods or services.The price ceiling is imposed to keep the price of goods or services affordable or enacted to keep prices low.

A price floor is the lowest price that consumers can legally pay for some good or service.The price floors prevent a price from falling below a certain level.

02

Fixed exchange rate and price ceiling 

In a fixed-exchange-rate system, a government sets the exchange rates for its currency and adjusts monetary and fiscal policy as necessary to maintain those rates. A price ceiling imposed by the government of a nation will keep the consumption of domestic goods unchanged. The imports (or exports) will not be altered at that exchange rate because of the absence of inflation in the domestic market.

When the imports are restricted to a fixed level, the demand for FOREX reserves remains constant, thereby keeping the exchange rates fixed.

03

Fixed exchange rate and a price floor

When a price floor is set, the exports remain unaltered at any fixed exchange rate. In other words, due to the fixed minimum price offered by a nation in the world market, the entry and exit of its trading partners are restricted.

If the export remains constant for a period when the price floor is set, the currency supply and demand remain unaltered. Thus, existing trading partners continue trading with the country that offers a minimum support price for goods or services already in the trade.

Due to this balance, the exchange rate remains fixed for an unchanged quantity of exports.

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Most popular questions from this chapter

What do the plus signs and negative signs signify in the U.S. balance-of-payments statement? Which of the following items appear in the current account and which appear in the capital and financial account: U.S. purchases of assets abroad, U.S. services imports, foreign purchases of assets in the United States, U.S. goods exports, U.S. net investment income? Why must the current account and the capital and financial account sum to zero?

Suppose that the Fed is fixing the dollar-pound exchange rate at $2.50 = £1. If the Fed’s reserve of pounds falls by £500 million, by how much would the supply of dollars increase, all other things equal?

The exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and the British pound starts at \(1 = £0.5. It then changes to \)1 = £0.75. Given this change, we would say that the U.S. dollar has ______ while the British pound has _______.

a. depreciated; appreciated

b. depreciated; depreciated

c. appreciated; depreciated

d. appreciated; appreciated

Refer to the following table, in which Qd is the quantity of loonies demanded, P is the dollar price of loonies, Qs is the quantity of loonies supplied in year 1, and Qs′ is the quantity of loonies supplied in year 2. All quantities are in billions, and the dollar-loonie exchange rate is fully flexible.

QdPQsQ's
101253020
151202515
201152010
25110155

a. What is the equilibrium dollar price of loonies in year 1?

b. What is the equilibrium dollar price of loonies in year 2?

c. Did the loonie appreciate, or did it depreciate relative to the dollar between years 1 and 2?

d. Did the dollar appreciate or did it depreciate relative to the loonie between years 1 and 2?

e. Which one of the following could have caused the change in relative values of the dollar (used in the United States) and the loonie (used in Canada) between years 1 and 2: (1) More rapid inflation in the United States than in Canada, (2) an increase in the real interest rate in the United States but not in Canada, or (3) faster income growth in the United States than in Canada?

Suppose that the current Canadian dollar (CAD) to U.S. dollar exchange rate is \(0.85 CAD = \)1 U.S. and that the U.S. dollar price of an iPhone is \(300. What is the Canadian dollar price of an iPhone? Next, suppose that the CAD to U.S. dollar exchange rate moves to \)0.96 CAD = $1 U.S. What is the new Canadian dollar price of an iPhone? Other things equal, would you expect Canada to import more or fewer iPhones at the new exchange rate? Explain.

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