经济学论文：简析中美两国失业率及汇率

 摘要：如今中美两国的的贸易往来日益频繁，使得两国的经济关系也日益紧密。由于贸易往来和汇率及劳动力密切相关，所以将两国的失业率及近年来的汇率比较分析是十分必要的。 
　　关键词：失业率 金融危机 货币政策 汇率 货币
　　 
　　As the United Stated is the only one super nation in the world, any tiny economic shocks in this country would cause great earthquake in the world economy, such as subprime crisis. China also attracts the attention of the world because of its fast development, and it is generally believed that China will become super nation within 100 years. In addition to that situation, the trade between China and the United States are becoming more frequent, so that the closer economic relationship between the two countries becomes. Because of the above situation, it is of vital importance to compare and predict the economic indicators of the two country. That's why I choose the United States and China to compare. Our two countries nearly five years of economic data investigated statistics. In this report, I will from two points of view, unemployment and exchange rate changes, to analyze and compare the two countries between five years of economic change. On the other hand, we from the data change can be found in the difference between the two countries. 
　　 
　　1.Unemployment rates 
　　Unemployment, as defined by the International Labour Organization, occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively looked for work within the past four weeks.(International Labour Organization,1982, p4) The unemployment rate is a measure of the prevalence of unemployment and it is calculated as a percentage by dividing the number of unemployed individuals by all individuals currently in the labour force. The following graph 3.1 shows the statistics of American unemployment rate for the last five years. 
　　 
　　From the graph , it can be concluded that the overall trend of the unemployment rate is increasing, especially the last three years. In the January of 2008 the rate was just 5%, but then the rate bumped up to 10% in only 2 years time. And the latest data was 9.8%, which was reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on December 3 . However, it was 9.6 percent in each of the prior 3 months. That is to say America economy has been badly hitted in the financial crisis, and unfortunately the declining tendency is still keeping spreading through out the nation. From the unemployment rates of the last 5 years, it is not hard to find that the economy of America have backed up since the financial crisis burst out. Although the financial crisis has spreaded to the whole world as the global economic integration, it still remains the biggest victims of financial crisis. 
　　 
　　Similar to the rate in America, from the above graph 3.2, the date in China was quiet low a few years ago just about 4. But unlike America, in the year of 2008 which was the time of the global financial crisis bust out, the Chinese government still keep the unemployment rate low at an annual average percentage of 4.2%. From the latest The latest statistics the rate of 2009 is a little bit higher than the previous years at 4.3% and some Insiders pointed out that the rate of 2010 will below 4.6%. But since the statistics of China is only collect once a year and only cities and towns are included, so there must be some hidden unemployment which cannot be shown from the data. So since then we cannot jump to the conclusion that the economy of China is stronger than the United States. From the above datum
 comparing, the cautious conclusion can be described like that the financial crisis has effected both of the countries and the influence will still keep spreading for some time. If compare the influence it brings to the two countries, it seems that the Unite State suffered more from the crisis.

2.Exchange rates 
　　In finance, the exchange rates (also known as the forEign-exchange rate, forex rate or FX rate) between two currencies specify how much one currency is worth in terms of the other. It is the value of a foreign nation's currency in terms of the home nation's currency.( O'Sullivan & Steven M. Sheffrin, 2003, P458 ) For example an exchange rate of 91 Japanese yen (JPY, ¥) to the United States dollar (USD, $) means that JPY 91 is worth the same as USD 1. The foreign exchange market is one of the largest markets in the world. By some estimates, about 3.2 trillion USD worth of currency changes hands every day. 
　　The exchange rate policy between the two currencies is not really free-floating. If a currency is free-floating, that means its exchange rate is allowed to vary against that of other currencies and is determined by the market forces of supply and demand. However, a movable system is a provision for the devaluation of a currency. The exchange rate between RMB and USD has dropped dramatically in the last 4 years. In September 2010, the fixed-exchange rate of RMB has already increased 1.5% in the last 3 months. But this phenomena can be attributed to the government controlling rather than the market forces. The American government are trying their best to control the rate and make rapid appreciation of the RMB and depreciation of USD. The dropping exchange cause the foreign exchange reserves of China shrink sharply. Since the export goods is becoming more expensive than before, the competitive advantage of the Chinese enterprises are weaken and hundreds of Chinese export companies are caught in trouble. Since the factories run the risk of bankrupt, the employees also may become unemployed, and as a result the unemployment rate which mentioned before will become higher. 
　　 
　　Reference: 
　　International Labour Organization,1982, International Labour Organization: Resolution concerning statistics of the economically active population, employment, unemployment and underemployment, p4, University of South Carolina Press, America. 
　　O'Sullivan & Steven M. Sheffrin, 2003, Economics: Principles in action,P458, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 
　　'Fixed exchange rate ', August 2009 on-line, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_report_writing, 8 Dec.2010.