Thursday, May 7, 2015

Over Valued Russian Rouble

This article on the Econmist talks about how the Russian ruble has become overpriced throughout the last few years after the financial crisis which is making it less competitive against other countries. The article states:
The real effective exchange adjusts the market exchange rate for inflation. This is an important adjustment. If the exchange rate between two countries is fixed, but their inflation rate is different, then the country with the higher inflation rate will gradually become less competitive. Citizens of the high-inflation country need more units of their currency to buy things at home. So when they sell abroad, they demand more of their domestic currency, which, in other words, pushes up the cost of their exports.
The chart tells a familiar story with Greece and Germany. Leading up to the financial crisis, the Greek real effective exchange rate became very overvalued, whereas the German one remained much lower.
This is interesting as it compares to Germany which we've discussed in class in relation to Greece. Do you think that the over-valuation in Russia could create a domino affect for countries they trade with? How do you think that Russia should regain competition in the global market?   

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