Exchange Rate Regimes And The Stability Of The International Monetary System

The member countries of the International Monetary Fund collaborate to try to assure orderly exchange arrangements and promote a stable system of exchange rates, recognizing that the essential purpose of the international monetary system is to facilitate the exchange of goods, services, and capital, and to sustain sound economic growth. The paper reviews the stability of the overall system of exchange rates by examining macroeconomic performance (inflation, growth, crises) under alternative exchange rate regimes; implications of exchange rate regime choice for interaction with the rest of the system (external adjustment, trade integration, capital flows); and potential sources of stress to the international monetary system.

In the two decades prior to publication of this 1994 book, international monetary relations had been characterised by latent instability, and then by severe tensions. Yet the issue of reforming the international monetary system does not appear on the agenda of the policy makers of the major countries involved. The International Monetary System tries to analyse this apparent contradiction. It brings together contributions from some of the most authoritative academic economists and monetary officials, and examines each of the fundamental functions of the international monetary system. There is broad support for improving present monetary arrangements with the aim of ensuring more stable conditions in monetary and financial markets and of promoting the orderly adjustment of payments disequilibria. For political reasons a fully-fledged reform exercise is unlikely, but very few experts seem to like the status quo. This book provides the reader with a comprehensive account of the institutional and policy changes required to manage an increasingly integrated and interdependent global monetary and financial system.

This paper examines some popular explanations for the smooth operation of the pre-1914 gold standard. We find that the rapid adjustment of economies to underlying disturbances played an important role in stabilizing output and employment under the gold standard system, but no evidence that this success also reflected relatively small underlying disturbances. Finally, the paper also suggests an explanation for the evolution of the international monetary system based on growing nominal inertia over time.

An empirical study of exchange rate regimes based on data compiled from 150 member countries of the International Monetary Fund over the past thirty years. Few topics in international economics are as controversial as the choice of an exchange rate regime. Since the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system in the early 1970s, countries have adopted a wide variety of regimes, ranging from pure floats at one extreme to currency boards and dollarization at the other. While a vast theoretical literature explores the choice and consequences of exchange rate regimes, the abundance of possible effects makes it difficult to establish clear relationships between regimes and common macroeconomic policy targets such as inflation and growth. This book takes a systematic look at the evidence on macroeconomic performance under alternative exchange rate regimes, drawing on the experience of some 150 member countries of the International Monetary Fund over the past thirty years. Among other questions, it asks whether pegging the exchange rate leads to lower inflation, whether floating exchange rates are associated with faster output growth, and whether pegged regimes are particularly prone to currency and other crises. The book draws on history and theory to delineate the debate and on standard statistical methods to assess the empirical evidence, and includes a CD-ROM containing the data set used.

Growing global imbalances threaten to induce a collapse of the dollar, which could in turn produce a severe recession in the rest of the world. This crisis could force countries to say "never again" and search for a system to prevent similar disasters. The system that could do so is a reference rate system—where countries' authorities are forbidden from intervening in order to push the exchange rate too far from what is termed the "reference rate." It could help a country's authorities manage its exchange rate to avoid large misalignments, assist the private sector in forming more dependable expectations of future exchange rates and thus to manage their businesses more efficiently in a world of floating exchange rates, and aid the International Monetary Fund in designing and managing an effective system of multilateral surveillance. The world economy would function better as a result, with less chance of the global imbalances leading to a world recession.

This book describes and evaluates the literature on exchange rate economics. It provides a wide-ranging survey, with background on the history of international monetary regimes and the institutional characteristics of foreign exchange markets, an overview of the development of conceptual and empirical models of exchange rate behavior, and perspectives on the key issues that policymakers confront in deciding whether, and how, to try to stabilize exchange rates. The treatment of most topics is reasonably compact, with extensive references to the literature for those desiring to pursue individual topics further. The level of exposition is relatively easy to comprehend; the historical and institutional material (part I) and the discussion of policy issues (part III) contain no equations or technical notation, while the chapters on models of exchange rate behavior (part II) are written at a level intelligible to first-year graduate students or advanced undergraduates. The book will enlighten both students and policymakers, and should also serve as a valuable reference for many research economists.

Provides an account of the evolution of exchange rate regimes in the 20th century, in chronological, non-technical format. Links between the past and present shed light on the merits of different exchange rate systems. Discusses forces that have brought about change in order to determine how different regimes affected the economic environment, considers the merits or otherwise of the respective regimes, and assesses arguments for and against fixed and floating exchange ratesAnnotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The Asian crisis of 1997-1998 was a major influence on macroeconomic thinking concerning exchange rate regimes, the functioning of international institutions, such as the IMF and the World Bank, and international contagion of macroeconomic instability from one country to another. Exchange Rate Regimes and Macroeconomic Stability offers perspectives on these issues from the viewpoints of two Nobel Laureates, an IMF economist, and Asian economists. This book contributes new ideas to the ongoing debate on the role of domestic monetary authorities and international institutions in reducing the likelihood of international financial crises, as well as the problems associated with various exchange rate regimes from the standpoint of macroeconomic stability. Overall, the chapters contained in this volume offer interesting perspectives, which have been stimulated by the recent events in the foreign exchange market. They provide a useful reference for anyone interested in the development of exchange rate regimes, and represent considerable reflection by economists half a century after Bretton Woods.