China's trilemma: Exchange rate marketization, RMB internationalization, and exchange rate pricing power

Abstract

We employ a threshold vector error correction model approach to investigate the impact of China's exchange rate marketization reform in August 2015 on the linkage between renminbi (RMB) onshore (CNY) and offshore (CNH) exchange rates and the impact of post-reform policy interventions by the People's Bank of China (PBoC) on CNY–CNH linkage. We find that, after the reform, price power over the RMB exchange rate changed from the onshore to the offshore market, in which the CNH significantly leads the CNY, and the CNY ceased to lead the CNH. Since the reform, the PBoC has faced a trilemma of exchange rate marketization, RMB internationalization, and maintenance of the onshore market's pricing power over the RMB exchange rate. The PBoC regained its RMB pricing power by reinforcing control over the onshore exchange rate and tightening offshore RMB liquidity, at the expense of setbacks in both exchange rate marketization and RMB internationalization.

Keywords

• F31
• G15
• C32