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КОНТРОЛЬНАЯ РАБОТА №4 (IV семестр)
для студентов специальностей
«Бухгалтерский учет, анализ и аудит», «Финансы и кредит»
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Упражнение 1
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EXCHANGE RATES
Всего 12 упражнений
Цена, руб. - 600
EXCHANGE RATES
A. The Bretton Woods agreement of 1944 established fixed exchange rates, defined in terms of gold and the US dollar. Between 1944 and 1971, many currencies were pegged against the US dollar, i.e. their parities with the US dollar were fixed. In this period, a US dollar was a promissory note issued by the United States Treasury. If anybody requested it, the Treasury had to exchange the note for 1/35th of an ounce of gold. Under this system, overvalued or undervalued currencies could only be adjusted with the agreement of the International Monetary Fund. Such adjustments are called devaluations and revaluations. The Bretton Woods system of gold convertibility and pegging against the dollar was abandoned in 1971, because following inflation, the Federal Reserve did not have enough gold to guarantee the American currency.
B. Gold convertibility was replaced by a system of floating exchange rates. (Today, the US dollar - the unofficial world currency - is merely a piece of paper on which is written ‘In God We Trust.’ God, not gold!) A freely (or clean) floating exchange rate is determined purely by supply and demand. Theoretically, in the absence of speculation, exchange rates should reflect purchasing power parity - the cost of a given selection of goods and services in different countries. Proponents of floating exchange rates, such as Milton Friedman, argued that currencies would automatically establish stable exchange rates which would reflect economic realities more precisely than calculations by central bank officials. Yet they underestimated the impact of speculation, and the fact that companies and investors frequently follow short-term money market trends even if these are contrary to their own long-term interests.
C. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the American, British and other governments deregulated their financial systems, and abolished all exchange controls. Residents in these countries are now able to exchange any amount of their currency for any other convertible currency. This has led to the current situation in which 95% of the world’s currency transactions are unrelated to transactions in goods but are purely speculative. Enormous amounts of money move round the world, chasing high interest rates or capital gains, as investors - including rich individuals, companies and pension funds - seek to maximize the value of their assets. In London alone, in the late 1990s, over $300 billion worth of currency was traded on an average day - the equivalent of about 30% of the value of the goods Britain produces each year. Banks, of course, make a profit from the spread between a currency’s buying and selling prices.
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