Estimate of Equilibrium Real Exchange Rate and Misalignment of Chinese Yuan Vis-a-Vis US Dollar

The paper examines the misalignment in equilibrium real exchange rate of Chinese Yuan against US dollar. The data covered the period of 1980-2014, it used Vector Autoregressive model, the variables are not stationary at level and became stationary after first differencing and there were three co-integration vectors. The long run coefficients have expected sign except for interest rate differential and are significant at 5 percent significance level. The speed of adjustment of real exchange rate to it equilibrium indicated that the disequilibrium in the last period are corrected by 87 percent each year and highly significant. The Yuan was overvalued by 4 percent, from 1981-1990 and in1990 it was undervalue about 4 percent and move back to equilibrium, the highest overvaluation was in 1993 up to 13 percent from equilibrium value and undervalue in 1994 by 14 percent which was the highest level of undervaluation, between 1996 to 2005 the Yuan was relatively within it equilibrium and slightly over value to 3.8 percent in 2008 back to long time path in 2011 and relatively undervalue by 1-3 percent since 2012, in general the Yuan is not substantially undervalue as claims in some studies both theoretical and empirical estimation and the movement in the exchange rate are consistent with economic fundamental of China.