Widening Deviation among East Asian Currencies

This paper investigates recent diverging trends among East Asian currencies as well as recent movements of the weighted average value of East Asian currencies (Asian Monetary Unit: AMU) and deviations (AMU Deviation Indicators) of the East Asian currencies from the average values. Our empirical analysis shows that linkages with the US dollar have been weakening since 2001 or 2002 for some of the East Asian countries. On the other hand, the monetary authority of China continues stabilizing the exchange rate of the Chinese yuan against the US dollar even though it announced its adoption of a currency basket system. It is found that the weighted average of East Asian currencies has been appreciating against the US dollar in recent years while depreciating against the currency basket of the US dollar and the euro. Also, deviations among the East Asian currencies have been widening in recent years, reflecting the fact that these countries’ monetary authorities are adopting a variety of exchange rate systems. In other words, a coordination failure in adopting exchange rate systems among these monetary authorities increases volatility and misalignment of intra-regional exchange rates in East Asia.