Monetary and Exchange Rate Systems: A Global View of Financial Crises

by Louis-Philippe Rochon (Editor), Sergio Rossi (Editor)

Overview

Combining critical perspectives with a positive contribution to economic policy, both national and international, this book considers the causes and consequences of recent financial crises presenting cutting-edge material.

The editors bring together a number of well-known scholars to offer their views and elaborate on alternative solutions with respect to the Washington Consensus on how to restructure the monetary and financial system in order to avoid financial crises in the future. The book deals with a number of issues, such as the Asian financial crises of the 1990s, exchange rate arrangements, financial liberalization and capital controls. The contributors take a critical approach, providing the elements for a new analysis of monetary and exchange rate issues in the modern world.

Monetary and Exchange Rate Systems will be extremely useful for researchers and policymakers interested in monetary macroeconomics and in the international financial system.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781845423841
Publisher:	Edward Elgar Publishing
Publication date:	05/29/2006
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Edited by Louis-Philippe Rochon, Full Professor, Laurentian University, Canada, Editor-in-Chief, Review of Political Economy and Founding Editor Emeritus, Review of Keynesian Economics and Sergio Rossi, Full Professor of Economics, University of Fribourg, Switzerland

Table of Contents

Contents:

Introduction
Louis-Philippe Rochon and Sergio Rossi

Part I: Financial Liberalization and Financial Crises
1. International Financial Instability in a World of Currencies Hierarchy
Andrea Terzi

2. Dollarization and the Hegemonic Status of the US Dollar
Jean-François Ponsot

3. Reform and Structural Change in Latin America: Financial Systems and Instability
Eugenia Correa and Gregorio Vidal

4. East Asian Monetary and Financial Cooperation: The Long Road Ahead
Kok-Fay Chin

5. Does Financial Liberalization Affect the Distribution of Income Between Wages and Profits?
Domenica Tropeano

6. Crisis Avoidance: The Post-Washington Consensus Agenda
Louis-Philippe Rochon

Part II: From Financial Instability to Macroeconomic Performance
7. Reforming the International Payment System: An Assessment
Claude Gnos

8. Is There a Role for Capital Controls?
Philip Arestis, Jesús Ferreiro and Carmen Gómez

9. Liberalization or Regulating International Capital Flows?
Paul Davidson

10. Cross-Border Transactions and Exchange Rate Stability
Sergio Rossi

11. To Fix or to Float: Theoretical and Pragmatic Considerations
L. Randall Wray

12. Exchange Rate Arrangements and EU Enlargement
Jesper Jespersen

Index

Editorial Reviews

‘This is an important, original, and highly topical volume, in which distinguished contributors from Europe, Asia, North America, and Mexico investigate the causes of recent international financial crises, and discuss a wide range of alternative policies to prevent future financial instability. The contributors share a broadly post-Keynesian perspective, and are therefore highly critical both of the Washington Consensus and of the case for unrestrained financial liberalization. While they agree on the need for tighter regulation and for international capital controls, they differ on other important questions, including the respective merits of fixed and floating exchange rate regimes. That gives to this collection of contributions a welcome element of creative tension. No-one with an interest in reforming the international monetary regime can afford to neglect this book.’

John King

‘This is a stimulating collection of the range of views bubbling up as a consequence of the perceived failure of the Washington Consensus, loosely unified by the laudable ambition to extend the Minsky-Kindleberger analysis of financial crisis to the conditions facing emerging market economies.’

Perry Mehrling

‘The era of globalization and financial liberalization has been remarkable for financial instability and crises. This book provides some great contributions from a range of views and countries to the debates on the causes and consequences of these crises, and on policy perspectives that can avoid further instability and its costs.’

Malcolm Sawyer

‘This is an important and timely book. Views on exchange rate regimes and the international monetary system cut right across the traditional “party lines” among economists, and Louis-Philippe Rochon and Sergio Rossi have provided an invaluable service by collecting the opinions of distinguished Post Keynesian economists from ten different countries and three continents. Is there an international solution to global economic problems? Or should the individual nations, particularly in the developing world, take a more nationalistic “neo-mercantilist” line?’

John Smithin