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In 1979 an IMF negotiator met Julius Nyerere, Tanzania's socialist president, and urged him to weaken the country's currency.
1979年，一名IMF談判代表會(huì)見了坦桑尼亞的社會(huì)黨總統(tǒng)朱利葉斯·尼雷爾，并敦促他削弱該國的貨幣。
"I will devalue the shilling over my dead body," Nyerere fumed afterwards.
尼雷爾事后生氣的說，“要讓先令貶值，除非我死了。”
Over the next decade, many African leaders took similar stands.
在接下來的十年里，許多非洲領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人采取了類似的立場。
But faced with worsening terms of trade and foreign-currency shortages, they eventually let their currencies slide.
但面對不斷惡化的貿(mào)易條件和外匯短缺，他們最終讓本幣貶值。
Tanzania bowed to the inevitable in 1986, after Nyerere had left office.
1986年，尼雷爾下臺(tái)后，坦桑尼亞向命運(yùn)低頭。
Most African exchange rates are now about where markets think they should be.
目前，大多數(shù)非洲國家的匯率處于市場認(rèn)為它們應(yīng)該處于的位置。
Could governments go further? An undervalued currency makes a country's exports cheaper,
政府能更進(jìn)一步嗎？被低估的貨幣會(huì)使一個(gè)國家的出口產(chǎn)品更便宜，
and so acts as an implicit subsidy to firms that sell abroad.
因此對出口產(chǎn)品的公司來說，這是一種暗補(bǔ)。
That can counterbalance institutional failures, such as the difficulty of enforcing contracts,
這可以抵消制度上的失敗，比如執(zhí)行合同的困難，
which hurt exporters more than they do local businesses—barbers, taxi-drivers and the like.
這對出口商的傷害比對當(dāng)?shù)仄髽I(yè)——理發(fā)師、出租車司機(jī)等——的傷害更大。
Exposure to world markets also helps companies learn and improve.
接觸世界市場也有助于企業(yè)學(xué)習(xí)和提高。
Dani Rodrik of Harvard University argues that governments in developing countries
哈佛大學(xué)的丹尼·羅德里克認(rèn)為發(fā)展中國家的政府
should not simply aim for an "equilibrium" exchange rate, as the IMF would urge, but actively engineer undervaluation.
不應(yīng)像IMF敦促的那樣，簡單地以“均衡”匯率為目標(biāo)，而應(yīng)積極策劃低估價(jià)值。
That may entail measures such as capital controls or reserve accumulation.
這可能需要采取資本管制或儲(chǔ)備積累等措施。
Some Asian countries, including China, adopted this strategy as they industrialised.
一些亞洲國家，包括中國，在工業(yè)化過程中采取了這一戰(zhàn)略。
Empirical studies suggest that undervaluation boosts growth, and more so in poor countries than in rich ones.
經(jīng)驗(yàn)研究表明，低估促進(jìn)了經(jīng)濟(jì)增長，這一點(diǎn)在貧困國家比在富國更明顯。
Strange, then, that those African countries that do manage their currencies are still trying to prop them up.
奇怪的是，那些管理本國貨幣的非洲國家仍在努力支撐本國貨幣。
Nigeria restricts access to foreign exchange to keep the naira strong.
尼日利亞限制外匯交易以保持奈拉的強(qiáng)勢。
Ethiopia's drive to become an Asian-style hub for export manufacturing has been hindered by an overvalued birr
埃塞俄比亞想要成為亞洲版出口制造業(yè)中心的努力受到了高估比爾的阻礙
(though a new IMF programme could weaken it).
（盡管IMF的新計(jì)劃可能會(huì)削弱它）。
A group of eight mostly francophone west African countries are changing the name of their currency but not, tellingly,
一個(gè)由8個(gè)以法語為主要語言的西非國家組成的組織正在改變他們貨幣的名稱，
the rate at which it is pegged to the euro. The last devaluation, in 1994, sparked riots.
但并沒有改變其與歐元掛鉤的匯率。上一次貨幣貶值發(fā)生在1994年，引發(fā)了騷亂。
A tendency to keep the currency strong is built into the structure of African economies.
保持貨幣堅(jiān)挺是非洲經(jīng)濟(jì)結(jié)構(gòu)的內(nèi)在要求。
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