(精选)商务英语综合教程(下册)Unit 9 The Monetary Focus(I)--A Yen for Change课件.pptVIP

Unit Nine ;Introduction; Text ; 1 Central Banks around the world have been busily wielding their monetary policy weapons in recent weeks in an effort to counter a widely expected recession. After the terrorist attacks last month, the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank were quick to cut nominal interest rates and to add liquidity. In Japan, where the economy is entering its second decade of stagnation, the rescue effort was less ambitious, aiming mainly at holding down the yen. Yet even that is a formidable challenge. ; 4 A lot of fuss has been made over the “unsterilised” character of these interventions, because they seem to signal a new, arguably long overdue, willingness to loosen monetary policy. When a central bank wants to move exchange rates, it can buy or sell domestic and foreign bonds on the open market, depending side effect of this is to cause the money supply to rise or fall. For example, if the Bank uses its yen to buy dollar assets, it can flood the money market with new yen in exchange for the dollars it takes in.; 5 If it wants to offset this, it can mop up the extra liquidity by selling yen-denominated securities, neutralizing the impact on the money supply, producing what is called a “sterilised” intervention. But the Bank claims-though some economists suspect they are exaggerating the extent of it- that recent interventions have been of the “unsterilised” variety. That would mean that it has let the extra money stay in the system, something the Bank has not previously allowed since 1945. 6 Looser monetary policy usually results in a weaker currency: more yen should mean cheaper yen. Also, as returns on the short-term domestic securities fall relative to foreign ones, investors may move their money abroad. Yet the yen seems to be defying these foreign-exchange fundamentals.; 7 Japan’s massive current- account surplus, the rich world’s largest, is one big reason. A country such as Japan, which inve