IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/ucbewp/233396.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Two Cases for Sand in the Wheels of International Finance

Author

Listed:
  • Eichengreen, Barry
  • Tobin, James
  • Wyplosz, Charles

Abstract

The incompatibility of pegged exchange rates, international capital mobility and national monetary autonomy is a basic postulate of open economy macroeconomies. In the present environment of high capital mobility and political uncertainty, even the possibility that governments may utilize their policy autonomy can defeat efforts to peg the exchange rate. This leaves two possibilities. One is to fix the exchange rate irrevocably through monetary unification. The other is to live with floating rates. Either way, a case can be made for "throwing sand in the wheels" of international finance. Where monetary unification is not an option, this is a may to make distinct national currencies tolerable and international money and capital markets compatible with modest national autonomy in monetary and macroeconomic policy. For. EU counties striving to create a monetary union, it is the only politically and economically feasible way of completing the transition to Stage III of the Maastricht process.

Suggested Citation

  • Eichengreen, Barry & Tobin, James & Wyplosz, Charles, 1994. "Two Cases for Sand in the Wheels of International Finance," Center for International and Development Economics Research (CIDER) Working Papers 233396, University of California-Berkeley, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:ucbewp:233396
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.233396
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/233396/files/cal-cider-c094-045.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dixit, Avinash, 1991. "Irreversible Investment with Price Ceilings," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(3), pages 541-557, June.
    2. Woo, Wing T., 1985. "The monetary approach to exchange rate determination under rational expectations: The dollar-deutschmark rate," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1-2), pages 1-16, February.
    3. Stein, Ernesto H. & Streb, Jorge M., 1998. "Political stabilization cycles in high-inflation economies," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 159-180, June.
    4. Obstfeld, Maurice, 1986. "Rational and Self-fulfilling Balance-of-Payments Crises," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(1), pages 72-81, March.
    5. Obstfeld, Maurice & Rogoff, Kenneth, 1995. "The intertemporal approach to the current account," Handbook of International Economics, in: G. M. Grossman & K. Rogoff (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 34, pages 1731-1799, Elsevier.
    6. James Tobin, 1978. "A Proposal for International Monetary Reform," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 4(3-4), pages 153-159, Jul/Oct.
    7. Svensson, Lars E. O., 1994. "Fixed exchange rates as a means to price stability: What have we learned?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(3-4), pages 447-468, April.
    8. Eichengreen, Barry & Simmons, Beth, 1993. "International Economics and Domestic Politics: Notes on the 1920s," Center for International and Development Economics Research (CIDER) Working Papers 233212, University of California-Berkeley, Department of Economics.
    9. Bensaid, Bernard & Jeanne, Olivier, 1997. "The instability of fixed exchange rate systems when raising the nominal interest rate is costly," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(8), pages 1461-1478, August.
    10. Dornbusch, Rudiger, 1976. "Expectations and Exchange Rate Dynamics," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(6), pages 1161-1176, December.
    11. Jeff Frankel, Steve Phillips, and Menzie Chinn., 1992. "Financial and Currency Integration in the European Monetary System: The Statistical Record," Center for International and Development Economics Research (CIDER) Working Papers C92-005, University of California at Berkeley.
    12. Tamim Bayoumi and Barry Eichengreen., 1994. "The Stability of the Gold Standard and the Evolution of the International Monetary System," Center for International and Development Economics Research (CIDER) Working Papers C94-040, University of California at Berkeley.
    13. Kenneth A. Froot & Kenneth Rogoff, 1991. "The EMS, the EMU, and the Transition to a Common Currency," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1991, Volume 6, pages 269-328, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Tamim Bayoumi and Barry Eichengreen., 1993. "One Money or Many? On Analyzing the Prospects for Monetary Unification in Various Parts of the World," Center for International and Development Economics Research (CIDER) Working Papers C93-030, University of California at Berkeley.
    15. Maurice Obstfeld, 1994. "The Logic of Currency Crises," NBER Working Papers 4640, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Paul R. Krugman, 1991. "Target Zones and Exchange Rate Dynamics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 106(3), pages 669-682.
    17. Barry Eichengreen & Charles Wyplosz, 1993. "The Unstable EMS," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 24(1), pages 51-144.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Financial Economics;

    JEL classification:

    • F0 - International Economics - - General
    • F3 - International Economics - - International Finance

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:ucbewp:233396. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (AgEcon Search). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/debrkus.html .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.