한미 금리 역전이 금융시장에 미치는 영향과 환율안정화 정책

The COVID-19 crisis over the past three years and the war in Ukraine last year have dealt a huge blow to our country's economy. In addition, interest rates in the US and South Korea have recently reversed, raising concerns about a compound crisis. In this paper, we analyze the impact of the US-Korea interest rate reversal phenomenon on the Korean financial market and whether the exchange rate is undervalued, and discuss exchange rate stabilization policies. A comparison of the economic situation in 2022 with the East Asian financial crisis of 1997 and the global financial crisis of 2008 is as follows. The country's credit rating has also been upgraded, foreign exchange reserves have increased, the proportion of short-term foreign debt has decreased, and indicators of financial institutions are sound, so the possibility of a financial crisis again is not high. However, compared to the time of the previous crisis, the government's fiscal capacity has decreased due to the large government debt-to-GDP ratio, and the limitation in using fiscal policies to escape the crisis is acting as a burden. In this paper, the real exchange rate misalignment was calculated using the purchasing power parity theory (PPP) and Edwards' equilibrium real exchange rate. It can be seen that the won/dollar exchange rate, which reached 1450 won in October 2022, was greatly undervalued. If the exchange rate is much undervalued, inflation and exchange rate volatility increase, which eventually adversely affects trade and investment. The foreign exchange market intervention policy to prevent a surge in the exchange rate in the second half of 2022 seems to be a meaningful policy to reduce the undervaluation of the exchange rate in its own way. It is well known that currency swaps are effective for stabilizing the foreign exchange market. For the Korea-US currency swap, not only economic but also political and diplomatic approaches such as the ROK-US alliance are needed. If it is realistically difficult to conclude a Korea-US currency swap, it is necessary to first try to conclude an agreement with other countries. In particular, it is necessary to promote the expansion of currency swaps with countries that have currencies that are commonly used in the international market, such as Japan, China, and Switzerland.