October 09, 2014
Neil Irwin has a piece today on the causes and consequences of the recent run-up in the dollar. He argues that the rise is largely due to the fact that the U.S. economy seems to be doing better in recent months than most other major economies, especially the euro zone and Japan. In those cases, the central banks are looking to ease up further in the foreseeable future, while the Fed is debating when to tighten.
This is certainly a plausible explanation for most of the rise (doesn’t work well for the British pound), but the consequences are not as benign as Irwin’s piece might lead readers to believe. The main consequence of a higher dollar is a larger trade deficit and therefore slower job growth and fewer jobs.
To get an idea of the magnitude of this effect, last month Goldman Sachs estimated that the 3.0 percent rise in the dollar we had seen by that point (it’s a bit more now) will shave 0.1 to 0.15 percentage points off GDP growth in each of the next two years (sorry, no link). That translates into lost jobs. If the economy is 0.25 percent smaller in 2016 due to the higher dollar that would imply a loss of roughly 350,000 jobs.
In considering whether this job loss is a big deal, remember that the country has less than 80,000 people employed in coal mining. There have been frequent news stories warning of the dire job impact of measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which would lead to substantial job loss in the coal industry. Just as a matter of arithmetic, if the coal industry were completely wiped out by environmental measures, the job loss in the coal industry would be less than one fourth as much as the job loss implied by Goldman’s estimate of the impact of the rise in the dollar.
In fairness to Irwin, he does note there will be winners and losers:
“If you frequently fill up your car with imported oil or drink French wine, it’s good news. If you are Boeing competing against Airbus, or General Electric competing against Siemens, or Cadillac competing with Mercedes-Benz, it is terrible news.”
We might add to his list of winners people who frequently take vacations in Europe or other foreign countries. A high percentage of the people involved in crafting economic policy (e.g. congressional and administration staffers, reporters, economists) fit into this category. It is probably also worth mentioning that the financial industry generally likes a stronger dollar since it means less risk of inflation and their money goes farther overseas. And, companies like Walmart that bet big on low cost imports are also happy with a higher dollar.
For these reasons, the high dollar may not be portrayed as a matter of concern in the media, even if the impact on jobs is far larger than other issues to which they have devoted considerable attention.
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