Intercambio Desigual y Tasa de Cambio: ¿Saqueo o Explotación? El Aporte de Gernot Köhler

Unequal Exchange is initially focused on Latin-American experiences and reflections around the topic. Second part of the essay presents the quantitative method of Gernot Köhler, results and tendencies during the last four decades of the XXth. Century. They show --against conventional wisdom-- that Third World currencies are not overvalued, but on the contrary, they are heavily undervalued with respect to the exchange rate measured in Power Parity Prices (PPP). The result is an enormous and increasing transfer of resources from Periphery to Center, stimulated by the triangle over devaluation-debt-dependence. The proposal to overcome this adverse effect on Periphery is explicit and open to academic and political debate between Central and Peripheral nations.