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If you've traveled outside the U.S. recently or sent your American-made products abroad, you've probably noticed the dollar is getting stronger. As NPR's John Ydstie reports, the stronger dollar is the sign of a healthier U.S. economy. But it also has the potential to erode growth.
JOHN YDSTIE, BYLINE: There are a number of factors behind the dollar's rise, says economist Jens Nordvig, a currency expert at Nomura Securities. The main one is the health of the U.S. economy.
JENS NORDVIG: When you compare the U.S. economy to the rest of the world, you really have a situation where there's a pretty dramatic outperformance of U.S. growth relative European growth, Japanese growth or global growth in general.
YDSTIE: But former IMF Chief Economist Simon Johnson emphasizes it is relative. The dollar is being measured against the currencies of other countries.
SIMON JOHNSON: It's a lot, also, about problems elsewhere in the world, including in the euro area and including in Japan, but also in emerging markets.
YDSTIE: Europe and Japan are both struggling to grow at all. The dollar's value has risen about 15 percent relative to their currencies, the euro and the yen, just since the summer. Nordvig says there are a number of channels through which the dollar is pushed up. One is driven by global investors who want to share in the gains the U.S. economy is making.
NORDVIG: That can be foreign companies buying U.S. companies. We call it foreign direct investment. That flow has picked up over the last 12 months.
YDSTIE: Global investors can also decide to buy individual U.S. stocks. But to do both of those things requires them to buy dollars to make those purchases. The greater demand drives up the dollar's value. The dollar's value is also pushed up by the prospect of higher interest rates on U.S. government bonds. Of course, the Federal Reserve has signaled it will begin pushing up rates around the middle of this year. But even now, Nordvig says, the returns on U.S. 10-year bonds are four times that of comparable German bonds.
NORDVIG: And that's obviously something that European investors are looking at and global investors are looking at. And they are making transfers out European investments and into U.S. investments.
YDSTIE: The stronger dollar is good news for U.S. travelers, whose dollars buy more in foreign countries, and it means U.S. consumers can purchase imported products more cheaply, from French wine to South Korean TVs to foreign oil. The stronger dollar puts downward pressure on global oil prices, though it's a minor factor in oil's current fall. But Simon Johnson, who's now a professor at MIT, says the stronger dollar can hurt some Americans.
JOHNSON: If you're exporting from the U.S. manufacturing, for example, and your costs are in dollars, then it's become harder to export - all your products are more expensive in foreign currencies.
DYKE MESSINGER: We're just beginning to see our customers mention it.
YDSTIE: That's Dyke Messinger, whose company manufactures machines that make curbs and gutters. The company, called Power Curbers, is based in Salisbury, North Carolina.
MESSINGER: Our German, European competitors, their prices may be slightly more favorable than it was. It really hadn't been a factor, but now people are going to notice. And so we're having to adjust a little bit.
YDSTIE: For now, Messinger says, the strengthening U.S. market for his product is offsetting any difficulty the stronger dollar is causing in the export market, so the trade-off is worth it. But if the dollar strengthened another 15 percent, Messinger says it could start to bite. Jens Nordvig does not expect that to happen this year, but he does expect the strong growth trend in the U.S. to continue.
NORDVIG: We have some headwinds that the dollar being stronger is going to be negative for some specific companies that export a lot. But I think the positives outweigh the negatives.
YDSTIE: Those positives include an improving jobs market, falling energy prices and more optimistic consumers. John Ydstie, NPR News, Washington.