Policy Assignment Strategies With Somewhat Flexible Exchange Rates Policy

The choice of assigning monetary or fiscal policy to external balance is complicated when the authorities are concerned with both the current account balance and the exchange rate. A strategy of using monetary policy to control the current account via the exchange rate may fail, because the relative-price effect is likely to be offset by the effect of monetary policy on aggregate demand. An alternative strategy, in which fiscal policy is assigned to limit shifts in the current account while the exchange rate is not directly targeted, may have a better chance of having favorable effects on both variables.

International Macroeconomics: Theory and Policy offers phenomenal coverage across the entire subject of international macroeconoimics in an open economy context. The book has four objectives: * to describe the evolution of and experiences with global exchange rate regimes * to introduce the reader to a rigorous analysis of open economy models * to apply the model framework to address key policy issues * to review individual country experiences of macro policy

Since the five largest industrial democracies concluded the Plaza Agreement in 1985, the theory and practice of international economic policy coordination has become the subject of spirited academic and public-policy debate. While some view policy coordination as crucial for the construction of an improved international monetary system, others fear that it risks delaying or weakening the implementation of macroeconomic and structural policies. In these papers and comments, prominent international economists consider past and present interpretations of the meaning of international policy coordination; conditions necessary for coordination to be beneficial both to the direct participants and the global economy; influential factors for the quantitative impact of coordination; obstacles to coordination; the most—and least—effective methods of coordination; and future directions of the coordination process, including processes associated with greater fixity of exchange rates. These studies will be readily accessible to policymakers, while offering sophisticated analyses to interested scholars of the global economy.

This collection of papers, edited by Victor Argy and Paul De Grauwe, examines issues surrounding the choice of exchange rate regime in smaller industrial countries. It contains a comprehensive summary by Jacques J. Polak.

The book investigates issues of policy design in open economies. The performance of simple alternative policy rules is analysed in the context of theoretical models using both analytical solutions and numerical simulations techniques. One of the substantive contributions of the research is that policy evaluation should take into account, among other things, the implications of different rules for foreign wealth and the exchange rate. Hence the open economy models presented in the book include wealth effects and the current account.

Over the past few decades, a clear trend has emerged worldwide toward the devolution of spending and, to a lesser extent, revenue-raising responsibilities to state and local levels of government. One view is that the decentralization of spending responsibilities can entail substantial gains in terms of distributed equity and macroeconomic management. The papers in this volume, edited by Teresa Ter-Minassian, examine the validity of these views in light of theoretical considerations, as well as the experience of a number of countries.

How can international monetary stability be promoted? This study looks at ways to bolster economic policies and coordination among the industrial countries serving as nominal anchors for the world economy. It also assesses the operation of monetary unions and common currency areas. The authors conclude that problems with the world monetary system reflect weaknesses outside the exchange rate arena, and that exchange rate commitements must be tailored to individual country characteristics.