Currency Devaluation in Developing Countries

ESSAYS IN INTERNATIONAL FINANCE No. 86, June 1971 CURRENCY DEVALUATION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES RICHARD N. COOPER ft1'I'Z. MACRLVP, l~FinMiu INTERNATIONAL FINANCE SECTION DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS PRINCETON UNIVERSITY Princeton, New Jersey CURRENCY DEVALUATION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES Copyright © 1 97 1 , by International Finance Section D epartment of Economics Currency devaluation is one of the most dramatic-even traumatic Princeton University measures of economic policy that a government may undertake. It al most always generates cries of outrage and calls for the responsible offi L.C. Card No. 78 -161679 cials to resign. For these reasons alone, governments are reluctant to devalue their currencies. Yet under the present rules of the international monetary system, laid down in the Articles of Agreement of the Inter national Monetary Fund, devaluation is encouraged whenever a coun try's international payments position is in "fundamental disequilibrium," whether that disequilibrium is brought about by factors outside the country or by indigenous developments. Because of the associated trauma, which arises because so many economic adjustments to a discrete change in the exchange rate are crowded into a relatively short period, currency devaluation has come to be regarded as a measure of last resort, with countless partial substitutes adopted before devaluation is finally undertaken. Despite this procrastination, over 200 devaluations in fact . occurred between the inauguration of the IMF in 194 7 and the end of 1970; to be sure, some were small and many took place in the years of postwar readjustment, especially 1949. In addition, there were five upvaluations, or revaluations, of currencies. Two more occurred in May 197I. By convention, changes in the value of a currency are measured aga-i nst the American dollar, so a devaluation means a reduction in the dollar price of a unit of foreign currency or, what is the same thing, an in crease in the number of units of the foreign currency that can be pur chased for a dollar. (The numerical measure of the extent of devalua tion will always be higher with the latter measure than with the former; for example, .the 1967 devaluation of the British pound from $2.80 to $2.40 was 14.3 per cent and r6.7 per cent on the two measures, re spectively.) By law, changes in currency parities are against gold, but since the official dollar price of gold has been unchanged since 1 9 34, Printed in the United States of America by p . U . rmceton m versity Press these changes in practice come to the same thing. Except when many cur at Princeton, New J ersey rencies are devalued at the same time-as they were in September 1949 and to a much less extent in November 1967 (when over a dozen countries devalued with the pound) and August 1969 (when fourteen French African countries devalued their currencies along with the French franc )-a currency devaluation against the dollar is also against 3 the ;est of the global payments system, that is, against all other cur tor incomes in money terms, especially .wa&es. P_e~haps ultimately the renetes. pressure on costs and prices of a ~epress10n m actiVIty would restore an Only a baker's dozen of countries did not devalue their currencies "librium level of costs and pnces that would lead to payments bal- eq UI . 1 d . h h t at least once during the period 1947-70 (Japan, Switzerland, and the ance at full employment, but the transitlona ~pr~ss10n mig .t ave o United States among developed countries, and ten less developed coun be long and painful. The recommended alternative IS devaluat10n of the tries, mostly in Central America). Largely because they are so nu currency, which at the stroke of pen lowers t~e country's costs and merous, but partly also because they devalue on average somewhat prices when measured in foreign currency. Analysis of t~e effects of d~ more often than the developed countries do, less developed countries valuation on the country's economy and of the mechamsm w:here?y 1t account for most currency devaluations. Yet the standard analysis of eliminates the payments deficit has proceeded uncle: .t~ree qUlte d1ffer currency devaluation, which has advanced substantially during this pe ent and apparently contrasting approaches : the elastlCltles approach, the riod and is still being transformed and further refined, fails to take absorption approach, and the monetary approach. into account many of the features that are typical of developing countries today, and which influence substantially the impact of currency devalua Three Approaches to Analysis tion on their economies and on their payments positions. The elasticities approach focuses on the substitution among comm~di This essay attempts to do three things. First, it sketches very briefly ties both in consumption and in production, induced by the relative the analysis of currency devaluation as it stands at present. Second, it pri~e changes wrought by the devaluation . .F~r an ope? eco~omy such suggests how this analysis has to be modified to take into account the as the one we are considering here, the prmcipal relat1v~-pr~ce change diverse purposes to which the foreign-exchange system is put in many is between goods, whether imported or exported, whose pnce 1s strongly less developed countries, and the extent to which these diverse purposes influenced by conditions in the world market, and those home goods in~uence the nature of devaluation and its effects on the economy. and services that are not readily traded. For a small country, we Third, it draws on recent experience with about three dozen devalua can assume that the prices in domestic currency. ~f fore~gn-~rade goods-: tions to see to what extent the anxieties of government officials, bankers, exports, imports, and goods in close compet1t1on w1th 1mports-w11l and traders, and even some economists, about devaluation and its effects rise by the amount of devaluation (the larger ?f t~e t~o p~rcentages are justified, and interprets some of this experience in light of the\earlier mentioned above is the relevant one here). Th1s nse w1ll d1vert pur theoretical discussion. chases out of existing income to nontraded goods and services, ther~by reducing domestic demand for imports and fo~ export goods, rele~smg I. A SUMMARY OF THE THEORY OF DEVALUATION the latter for sale abroad. When the country 1s large enough to mflu In analyzing devaluation, the exact nature of the initial disequilibrium ence world prices, domestic prices may rise by less ~han the amount is important, and much analysis misleads by its focus on economies that of the devaluation, since prices in foreign currency w1ll fall. somewhat are assumed to be in equilibrium at the moment of devaluation. To in response to the reduction in our country's. demand for 1m~orts or set the stage preci~ely, suppose we have a country which for reasons to the increase in its supply of exports. There 1s sot?e presump~10n that past has money costs that are too high to permit it to balance its inter most countries will have a greater influence on the1r export pnces than national payments at a level of domestic economic activity that is both on the prices at which they import, s? the ris~ in local prices of exports desired and sustainable, and as a result it must finance a continuing pay will be less and the terms of trade w1ll detenorate. ment deficit out of its reserves, a process that obViously cannot continue The shif~ in relative prices operates both on con:umption and on pro indefinitely. Thus by assumption we are not dealing with a case in duction. Consumption will be diverted to lower-pnced nontrade~ goods which domestic demand is pressing against productive capacity to an and services, releasing some existing o~tput for export ~?d ~uttmg de extent that is regarded as undesirable ("inflationary"), although under mand for imports. At the same time, mcrease~ pr?fitab1lity :n the for the circumstances domestic expenditure does exceed domestic output, eign-trade sector, arising fro~ the fact :hat pnces m domest1c cu:rency a necessity to maintain full employment. Correction of the payments im have risen more than domestiC costs, w1ll st1mulate new product10n of balance by reducing aggregate demand (the rate of money spending) export and import-competing goods, and wil~ d~aw resou;ces in~o these would lead to unwanted unemployment because of the rigidity of fac- industries. If excess capacity happens to ex1st m these mdustnes, the 4 5 resources drawn in will be variable ones-labor and materials. Otherwise real value of the money supply will be reduced by devaluation, because new investment will be required; in agriculture, land may have to be the local prices of traded goods and services, and,_sec~ndarily, t~ose. of recropped or herds rebuilt. nontraded goods and services to which demand IS diverted, Will nse. The elasticities approach gives rise to the celebrated Marshall-Lerner The public will accordingly reduce its spending in o_rder to rest~re c~mdition for an in:~rovement in the trade balance following a devalua the real value of its holdings of money and other finanoal assets, which tiOn: that the elastlClty of demand for imports plus the foreign elasticity reduction in expenditure will produce the required improvement in the of demand for the country's exports must exceed unity, which is to say balance of payments. For a country in initial deficit, the right devaluation that the change in the quantity of imports and exports demanded to will achieve just the right reduction in the real value of the money sup gether must be sufficie_ntly great to offset the loss in foreign earnings ply, and the deficit will cease.

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