专栏3-固定汇率与浮动汇率比较 Fixed Exchange Rate and
Floating Exchange ate A fundamental advantage of a regime with fixed exchange rates, in one view, is that it implies monetary integration . International money in international economy is seen as crucially beneficial, for the same reason as that justifying monetary integration at the level of individual countries, namely, the existence of a common standard of value and medium of payment to express economic contracts and regulate transactions. The
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benefits that may result from a system with stable exchange rates should be compared with the costs due to the constraints that such a system imposes on sovereignty, that is, the ability of countries to act on their own instead of under the instructions of another. Clearly, sovereignty is constrained under irrevocable fixed exchange rate (e.g. countries lose control of monetary policy in their own economy as the interest rate cannot deviate from the world interest rate, unless constraints are imposed on convertibity)
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the rest of the world. Finally, a floating exchange rate system, because its equilibrating nature, would enable a country to hold a smaller amount of foreign exchange reserves.
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Floating Exchange Rate The first supposed advantage of a floating rate was that it would rapidly move to maintain purchasing power parity, thus preventing real exchange rate misalignments, and their consequences for the balance of payments, which were often a feature of the Bretton Woods pegged exchange rate system.A second supposed advantage of a flexible rate system was that it would always move to maintain balance of payments equilibrium and so insulate a country from shocks emanating in