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  • - [Instructor] What we're gonna do in this video

  • is try to think of the chain of events

  • that would happen if the supply of loanable funds

  • were to increase in the United States.

  • And the way that that could happen is

  • let's say the Federal Reserve were to

  • so to speak print money, and then use that money

  • to buy treasuries in the US.

  • So it's inserting those Federal Reserve notes

  • into the quantity of loanable funds.

  • Well what would happen is that the supply

  • of loanable funds would shift to the right.

  • So our new supply would look like this,

  • would look like this.

  • I'll call that S prime.

  • And then we'd have a new equilibrium price of those funds,

  • which we would call our real interest rate.

  • So then we get to r prime.

  • So our real interest rates have gone down,

  • and we have a higher quantity of money

  • that is being loaned, Q prime.

  • But what would be the effect of that?

  • What would be the effect of that

  • relative to other countries?

  • And I'm just picking Japan here as another country,

  • but this could be the case with many other countries

  • where they have relatively free flows

  • of goods and financial capital.

  • And to help us think through that,

  • I drew the balance of payments for each country.

  • And the balance of payments is made up of

  • the current account, which is talking about the flows

  • of goods and services, and then you have

  • what's sometimes called a capital account,

  • sometimes the capital and financial account,

  • which is talking about the flow of,

  • it oftentimes, you could think of it as financial investment

  • or investments of some kind or the flow of funds.

  • So pause this video and think about what would happen.

  • Well, if the real interest rate go down in the United States

  • and we're assuming that all else equal

  • in every other country, well then you have a situation

  • where in Japan, the relative real interest rates

  • are now higher, so relative, relative real interest rates,

  • interest rates, are higher.

  • Now in general, people might want to say hey,

  • if I can get a higher or a higher than before

  • relative real interest rate, it might not be

  • absolutely higher, but it's higher than it was before

  • relative to the United States, well that might increase

  • the financial flows from the United States to Japan.

  • And so you might have some more people,

  • not everyone, but some more people than before,

  • who want to take their dollars, convert it into yen,

  • and buy financial assets in Japan

  • where they can get that relatively now

  • higher real interest rate.

  • Well if these folks are converting from dollars to yen,

  • what's the immediate effect of that?

  • Well, it will increase demand for the yen

  • and so the price of the yen in dollar terms will go up.

  • Or another way to think about it is

  • this is going to cause the dollar to depreciate,

  • depreciate, relative, relative to the yen.

  • So we're just gonna put that aside right over here,

  • 'cause this is gonna have other implications.

  • But that dollar, it's used to buy yen,

  • and then those investors will maybe buy Japanese bonds.

  • And so what's happening?

  • Well we're talking about the transfer of financial assets.

  • And so in the United States,

  • the capital and financial account, that will go down.

  • This will go down.

  • You could think of it as being debited.

  • And in Japan, they're getting,

  • they're getting an increase in financial assets.

  • People are investing more in Japanese bonds.

  • However you want to think about it.

  • And so that increase in funds, that goes up,

  • and so this is getting credited.

  • Now, in other videos, we've talked about how over time,

  • the balance of payments tend to balance out.

  • If one side is getting debited,

  • the other side is getting credited, or vice versa.

  • So how is that going to work out in this situation?

  • Well that all goes back to the fact that the dollar

  • has depreciated relative to the yen.

  • If the dollar depreciates relative to the yen,

  • what is that going to do?

  • Well now American goods, American goods,

  • are relatively cheaper, relatively cheaper,

  • or cheaper than they were before, cheaper in Japan.

  • That's hard to read.

  • And Japanese goods more expensive,

  • more expensive, in the US.

  • And so what is going to happen?

  • Well in that situation, that means that the US

  • is going to export more to Japan.

  • Their goods are now relative, are now cheaper in Japan,

  • Japanese goods are now more expensive in the US.

  • So they're going to buy fewer Japanese, Japanese goods

  • and sell, and export, export more

  • American goods, American goods.

  • And so what's going to happen on our current account?

  • Well if your exporting more,

  • that means your current account goes up.

  • It is going to be credited.

  • It is going to be credited.

  • And then the opposite's going to happen to Japan.

  • Relative to the US, it's going to export

  • less and import more.

  • So its current account is going to be,

  • is going to be debited.

  • Now economies are complex things,

  • and what I've just done is a little bit of a simplification.

  • But these are the general trends that you would expect.

  • Other things that you might expect is well,

  • if you have this flow of financial capital into Japan,

  • well that might increase their loanable funds.

  • And so their real interest rate might eventually go down

  • and all of these cycles would keep going

  • and reverberating back and forth over time.

  • But this is the general chain of events

  • that you might expect, that the interest rates in Japan

  • will become relatively higher.

  • And so you have a flow of financial funds

  • going from the US to Japan.

  • In the process, when they convert from dollar to yen,

  • the dollar is going to get cheaper,

  • the yen's going to get more expensive.

  • The American capital and financial account goes down

  • 'cause you have this net outflow of financial funds.

  • But because of the depreciation of the dollar,

  • the US is now importing less and exporting more.

  • Now a question is is this good or bad for either country?

  • Well, it depends what the country's goals are.

  • This might be good for the US if their goal

  • was to export more American goods.

  • Or it might be bad for the US if they said hey,

  • now Japanese goods are more expensive,

  • and maybe they're dependent on some type of Japanese goods

  • in some way, shape, or form.

  • That might not be the case with the US,

  • but in another country, let's say they're dependent

  • on oil from other countries or they're dependent

  • on military hardware from other countries.

  • And if those things become more expensive, or food,

  • that might make it a lot harder for their citizens.

  • So it's an interesting thing to think about,

  • whether this is good or bad and how

  • all of these things fit together.

- [Instructor] What we're gonna do in this video

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