China and job creation

China's Central Bank Announces Job Creation Program for the United States by Dean Baker

That may be a bit of an overstatement, but the comments from Yi Gang, a deputy governor at China's central bank, deserved much more attention than they received. According to Bloomberg, YI announced that the bank would no longer accumulate reserves since it does not believe it to be in China's interest. The implication is that China's currency will rise in value against the dollar and other major currencies.

This could have very important implications for the United States since it would likely mean a lower trade deficit. Since other developing countries have allowed their currencies to follow China's, a higher valued yuan is likely to lead to a fall in the dollar against many developing country currencies. A reduction in the trade deficit would mean more growth and jobs. If the deficit would fall by 1 percentage point of GDP (@$165 billion) this would translate into roughly 1.4 million jobs directly and another 700,000 through respending effects for a total gain of 2.1 million jobs.

Since there is no politically plausible proposal that could have anywhere near as much impact on employment, this announcement from China's central bank is likely the best job creation program that the United States is going to see. It deserves more attention than it has received.