Monday 21 September 2015

What is the mechanism to print currency in the country? How much currency can a country print at a time?

First of all, lets start with the assumption that Govt. knows how much money to print. Let this quantity be X. Now, what happens if Govt. prints more than X, or less than X? To get the idea of this, please consider my following answer

Why can't Indian government pay world bank loan by just printing money?


RBI can print as much money as it wants. Why can't it print enough money to pay off all the loan that has to be paid to World Bank?

Why can't RBI control the Rupee value against Dollar by simply printing lesser money?


As per my understanding, printing lesser increases the value of a currency and printing more reduces its value.
I'll try to keep the answer short to keep the readers from dozing half way.

Since you are asking "why doesn't RBI simply print lesser money in order to keep the value of Rupee against Dollar under check", I assume you are already aware of the effects which printing excess amount of currency in any country causes (the basic demand-supply concept of goods & services: more demand of goods than supply, or more supply of money than demand results in more value of goods or less value of money, and vice-versa). In case you are not, I hope you are aware with hyperinflation in Zimbabwe; well that's basically it. In case someone still doesn't understand or wants to know more, please read the wiki article on Hyperinflation.

Now, let us apply the same concept here. Let us assume the RBI decides to stop printing the currency for a while. Quite opposite to inflation, where value of money decreases, value of money starts to increase here, i.e., you can buy more goods and services for same amount of money than you could before. Another way of saying it would be: the prices of goods & services are falling.

Now let us stop here for a while and think over the situation with the help of an example. Let us take gold. Somebody tells you the value of gold is falling down, i.e., you can buy more gold for same amount of money. Further, he tells you that value of gold will go down even further. (Lets just say that your source is impeccable and if he says so, it's going to happen). What would you do?

You, as an investor, would not buy gold right now. Instead, you would wait till the prices are little more down so you could get a better deal. It is human nature, you cannot help it; neither can rest of the population in the country. So everyone waits, nobody buys, hoping for the prices to fall further.

Now, let us replace gold with other goods and services. The basic concept remains same. People do not buy goods or services in hope for a better deal later. They wait. Result: the aggregate demand goes down.

There is a fall in how much the whole economy is willing to buy and the ongoing price for goods. Because the price of goods is falling, consumers have an incentive to delay purchases and consumption until prices fall further. The fall in demand causes a fall in prices as there is excess in supply. This becomes a deflationary spiral when prices fall below the costs of financing production. Businesses, unable to make enough profit no matter how low they set prices, are then liquidated. As can be seen, the overall economic activity of the country is reduced

This whole process of reduction in value of goods and increase in value of money is called Deflation. There could be many reasons for deflation; readhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De...

Now, Deflation is generally regarded negatively, since it causes a transfer of wealth from borrowers and holders of non-liquid assets, to the benefit of savers and of holders of liquid assets and currency. Simply put, the land you owned now has less value than it had, and the money in my hand now has more value than it did. 

While an increase in the purchasing power of one's money benefits some, it amplifies the sting of debt for others: after a period of deflation, the payments to service a debt represent a larger amount of purchasing power than they did when the debt was first incurred. Consequently, deflation can be thought of as an effective increase in a loan's interest rate.

Deflation, like Inflation, is not good for an economy. This is the reason why printing of the currency has to be regulated: you can not print too much and you can not print too less either.

I hope your question is answered to some extent.  :)

P.S.: The answer written here is based on my understanding on the topic, and may have some flawed explanations, or worst: totally wrong.   :P
In such case, please comment so, so that I could improve the answer as well as my understanding about the topic.

 Read below this point if you have any doubts to check if it has already been answered. If not, then post a comment please. :)

Q: How is printing lesser INR related to USD?
A: Isn't it? Think about it.

A certain service X here costs Rs. 10. Govt. decides to double the supply of money. Consequently, the prices rise and same service now costs 2x, i.e., Rs. 20, since value of money is halved.

Now let us assume the exchange rate for INR to USD be 50, i.e., 1 USD costs Rs. 50. Think from the point of view of a nation: would you pay twice the amount for same service just because the other nation decided to double money supply and screw their own economy? No, you wont.

Initially, US could get 5X for 1 USD. Why should it change? But back here in India same service now costs Rs. 20. Hence, to get 5X for same 1 USD, exchange rate has to be at the rate of Rs. 100.

Similarly for printing less: it would then be Rs. 25 for 1 USD.

Q: So you agree that rupee value against USD can be increased by printing less?
A: Well, that will be one initial effect, yes; provided that the overall economic activity of the country remains same. 

But as you can see from the answer above, there would be a reduction in economic activity. Hence, the value of rupee would start to fall again, and this time beyond its original value against dollar. 

This is my understanding.  

Q: Shouldn't there be a sweet spot in between where the inflation rate reduces but still remains positive? Why not just hit that spot? Why not ensure a small positive rate of inflation (say 5%) - which seems to be ideal for everyone.
A: Well, you are correct in your thoughts; although, an ideal rate of inflation is around 1-2 % and not as high as 5%.

A low but positive rate of inflation is always desirable for number of reasons, but mostly because other scenarios are not desirable. Following the method of exclusions, following is not desirable: 

1. Very High Inflation: For reasons explained above: it is costly.

2. Negative Inflation or Deflation: Again, for reasons explained above. It should be known that deflation is much more costlier than a similar rate of inflation.

3. No Inflation or very low inflation: At very low rate of inflation, interest rates are close to zero, thus limiting a central bank’s ability to respond to economic weakness.

A constant inflation at 1-2% checks the point 3 above, and is, hence, most desirable of all the scenarios.

Although in current scenario, RBI should not and would not resort to such method since strengthening of Rupee right now will promote imports even further, and reduce exports. This is not desirable as it would further reduce value of Rupee.

Q: So are you saying that any attempt to increase the value of rupee would increase imports creating an additional lack of demand of rupee (thus devaluing it again) to such an extent that the net effect would be a decrease in its value?
A: Without going into technical details, broad concept is that strengthening of currency favors imports and discourages exports, and vice-versa.

Already the Indian economy is not in a very good state, our imports being huge and exports less. This is not good for any economy. 

If anything, RBI would try to keep the rupee at the same value, if not let it fall further, to support the exports and discourage the imports.

If RBI tries to strengthen rupee, imports get favored and value of rupee starts to go down. As can be assumed, it would be oscillation rupee value. Why would RBI try something like that??

P.S.: Final outcome in terms of rupee value cannot be measured since it would depend a lot more factors.