CAMBRIDGE – America's two political parties rarely agree, but one thing that unites them is their anger about “currency manipulation," especially by China. Perhaps spurred by the recent appreciation of the dollar and the first signs that it is eroding net exports, congressional Democrats and Republicans are once again considering legislation to counter what they view as unfair currency undervaluation. The proposed measures include countervailing duties against imports from offending countries, even though this would conflict with international trade rules.

CAMBRIDGE – What a difference two months make. When the Republican Party scored strong gains in last November’s US congressional elections, the universally accepted explanation was that voters were expressing their frustration with disappointing economic performance. Indeed, when Americans went to the polls, a substantial share thought that economic conditions were deteriorating; many held President Barack Obama responsible and voted against his Democratic Party.Now, suddenly, everyone has discovered that the US economy is doing well – so well that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has switched from blaming Obama for a bad economy to demanding credit for a good one.

This is the third and final installment of an interview on the outlook for the New Year.Part 3. Forecasts for International Currency and Commodity MarketsQ – What is your forecast for the U.S. dollar? Do you think maintaining the strong dollar could ultimately help the U.S. economy, or hurt it?A – The appreciation of the dollar against the euro and the yen in 2014 was precisely what we should have expected from the economic fundamentals: the strengthening of the US recovery at the same time that the euro and Japanese economies have been slumping and the end of US monetary easing at the same time that the ECB and the Bank of Japan have redoubled their efforts at monetary stimulus.

Following the first installment of a year-end interview on the global outlook, I turn in the second installment to the domestic economy.Part 2. The US EconomyQ – As economic adviser to President Clinton, you oversaw one of the most prosperous periods in recent U.S. history. How do you assess the economic strategy of the Obama administration? What would you have done differently were you an adviser?A – In my view President Clinton’s policies did contribute substantially to the outstanding performance of the American economy in the late 1990s.

I am posting in three parts the results of an interview on the year-end outlook.  (The questions come from Chosun Daily, leading Korean newspaper. The interview is to be published there January 1.)Part 1. The Global Economy in 2015Q: Around this time next year, which countries do you predict will be the winners, and which will be the losers of the year?A: The big gainers will be oil-importing economies, particularly China, India and other Asian countries.Russia will be the big loser. It has now become clear to all how fragile and vulnerable the Russian economy was, especially with respect to world oil prices.

Oil prices have plummeted 40% since June – good news for oil-importing countries, but bad news for Russia, Venezuela, Nigeria, and other oil exporters. Some attribute the price drop to the US shale-energy boom. Others cite OPEC’s failure to agree on supply restrictions.But that is not the whole story. The price of iron ore is down, too. So are gold, silver, and platinum prices. And the same is true of sugar, cotton, and soybean prices. In fact, most dollar commodity prices have fallen since the first half of the year.

On December 3, 2014, I participated in a panel of Harvard University’s Bipartisan  Program  for  Newly Elected Members of Congress.   After establishing that the median US household has not shared in recent strong economic gains, I went on to consider policy remedies.I offered the Congressmen eight policy recommendations.  Some will sound popular, some very unpopular; some associated with “liberals”, some with “conservatives.”   I would claim that they all have in common heavy support from economists, regardless of party – even the very unpopular ones.

Those worried about the future of the earth’s climate are hoping that this year’s climate change convention in Lima, Peru, December 2014, will yield progress toward specific national commitments, looking ahead to an international agreement at the make-or-break Paris meeting to take place in December 2015.The precedent of the Kyoto Protocol negotiated in 1997 is more discouraging than encouraging. It was an encouraging precedent in that countries were politically able to agree on legally binding quantitative limits to their emissions of Greenhouse Gases, to be achieved with the aid of international trading and other market mechanisms.

Discussions in Beijing between US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping – the leaders of the world’s two largest carbon-emitting countries – produced an unexpected, groundbreaking bilateral agreement on greenhouse-gas emissions. Under the new deal, the US is to reduce its emissions by 26-28% from 2005 levels within 20 years, and China’s emissions are to peak by 2030. In the absence of a binding global agreement, such unilateral or bilateral commitments by countries to rein in their contribution to global warming represent the most realistic hope for addressing climate change.

When the United States’ current account fell into deficit in 1982, the US Council of Economic Advisers accurately predicted record deficits for years to come, owing to budget deficits, a low national saving rate, and an overvalued dollar. If the US did not adjust, knowledgeable forecasters intoned, it would go from being the world’s largest creditor to its largest debtor. Many of us worried that the imbalances were unsustainable, and might end in a “hard landing” for the dollar if and when global investors tired of holding it.