【英文】国际经济报告：美元行将崩盘吗（21页）

Naturally, this backdrop has led observers to conclude that a dollar crash is imminent, as government debt  expands and the balance of payments deteriorates in kind.  Over the short to medium term, such a crash is unlikely. Rather, the currency is likely to face a steady but prolonged period of depreciation as the structural supports  that have boosted the dollar begin to fade. Broadly speaking, the most recent upcycle has been  buoyed by three pillars. First, the shale revolution allowed  the United States to achieve energy self-suffciency in  2019. Mechanically, this generated a major improvement  in the trade balance and led to a shortage of dollars abroad.  However, the world is on the cusp of another energy revolution, a green one. Here, the leadership role of the United  States is less clear, as Europe and China possess many of  the key technologies. 

As these technologies are adopted  over time, this will erode the relative energy advantage of  the United States. Second, U.S. growth outperformance following  the global fnancial crisis allowed the Fed to normalize  monetary policy as many other developed-market central  banks remained stuck at the zero lower bound. Prior to  Covid-19, this opened up wide interest rate differentials  that encouraged U.S. infows. However, these interest rate  differentials have now contracted substantially. And with  the Fed likely on hold for many years, they are unlikely to  widen again soon. The fnal factor boosting the dollar has been President  Trump. While it is debatable whether his policies were  good for the U.S. economy as a whole, they were undoubtedly good for the currency. In particular, the corporate  tax rate was reduced from 35 percent to 21 percent, and  there was a dramatic rollback of government regulations.  Combined, this raised the after-tax return on capital and  made the United States a very attractive place to invest.