This book presents empirical evidence that supports and facilitates a practical, integrated approach to how bank regulatory and selected macro-prudential tools interact with monetary policy to achieve price and financial stability. The empirical results contained in various chapters accompany in-depth historical analysis and counterfactual scenarios that enable proper policy evaluation and the interaction of bank regulatory, macro-prudential and monetary policy tools in South Africa. The presented evidence also identifies financial asset boom and bust episodes and the associated costly output losses. In addition, the authors explore the amplification of credit dynamics by commodity prices and sector credit re-allocation due to capital inflows shocks. The book's empirical analysis uses a wide range of statistical and econometric approaches on granular data and economic variables to derive policy implications and recommendations. This in-depth quantitative analysis includes determining inverse transmission of global liquidity, as well as the effects of capital flows, lending-rate margins, financial regulatory uncertainty, the National Credit Act, bank capital-adequacy ratios, bank loan loss provisions, loan-to-value ratios and repayment-to-income ratios on the macro-economy.

Japan and the European Union sets out to answer a number of crucial questions on the effect of Japan's international relations upon its internal affairs -- in particular how international issues, and Japan's growing relationship with the European Union, have come to penetrate the political economy and decision-making structure in Japanese industry and legislation. Japan/EU affairs have never been marked by any significant political relations, and until the past twenty years, they have been characterized by a reserved indifference. However, as a result of accelerated political and economic changes in the past decade, the two economic giants have made considerable efforts to nurture bilateral relations largely initiated by trade concerns. The author examines the development of this relationship informed by International Relations perspectives and taking into account the growing dependence of successful bilateral relations on the international political economy. Furthermore, Dr. Abe explains the attempt that has been made to resolve Japanese/EU disputes by way of a Joint Declaration. This includes an examination of the 1991 Automobile Agreement involving Japan, the EC Commission and the Japanese manufacturers; and the Liquor Tax dispute which ran from 1986-1995. Throughout this account, the concerns of the United States, and its impact on this relationship, are fully registered.

Interchange fees have been the focal point for debate in the card industry, among competition authorities and policy makers, as well as in the economic literature on two-sided markets and on the regulation of market failures. This book offers insight into the economics of interchange fees. First, it explains the nature of two-sided markets/platforms/networks and elaborates on four-party schemes and on the rationale behind interchange fees according to Baxter's model and its later refinements. It also includes the debate about the optimum level of interchange fees and its determination ("tourist test"), and presents the original framework for assessing the impact of interchange fee regulatory reductions for the market participants: consumers, merchants, acquirers, issuers, and card organisations. The framework addresses three areas of concern in reference to the transmission channels of interchange fee reductions (pass-through) and the card scheme domain (triangle: payment organisation, issuer, acquirer). The book discusses the effects of regulatory interchange fee reductions in Australia, USA, Spain, and, most specifically, Poland. It will be of interest to policy makers, card and payments industry practitioners, academics, and students.

Following the recent publication of the award winning and much acclaimed "The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics," second edition which brings together Nobel Prize winners and the brightest young scholars to survey the discipline, we are pleased to announce "The New Palgrave Economics Collection." Due to demand from the economics community these books address key subject areas within the field. Each title is comprised of specially selected articles from the Dictionary and covers a fundamental theme within the discipline. All of the articles have been specifically chosen by the editors of the Dictionary, Steven N.Durlauf and Lawrence E.Blume and are written by leading practitioners in the field. The Collections provide the reader with easy to access information on complex and important subject areas, and allow individual scholars and students to have their own personal reference copy.

In his penetrating analysis of Mexico's current economic, political, and social situation, Ramirez focuses on the major structural problems that underlie the nation's profound economic difficulties and the challenges they pose to its people. Writing for both economists and political scientists, Ramirez offers a framework of analysis for a better understanding of Mexico's economic crisis -- one based on an in-depth examination of both its historical origins and its present ramifications. The discussion is supported by comprehensive coverage of the relevant economic data, making this one of the most thorough treatments of the subject available in print.

Following an introductory chapter that provides essential background information, Ramirez addresses the historical and institutional background of the current situation. His study is unusually broad-based in scope, encompassing such issues as the social costs of modernization and the legacy of revolution during the first part of this century, Cardenas and the revolutionary process, economic growth via import-substitution policies, the exhaustion of the Mexican growth model during the 1970s and 1980s, the IMF austerity program. The final chapters present cogently argued policy recommendations -- including alternatives to the austerity measures imposed by international lending organizations. Ramirez's conclusions regarding the causes of Mexico's economic decline and his predictions for the country's economic future make an important contribution to the debate over Mexico's economic survival.

In this edited collection, Joseph Stiglitz and Martin Guzman present a series of studies on contemporary macroeconomic issues. The book discusses a set of key lessons for macroeconomic theory following the recent global financial crisis and explores unconventional monetary policy in a post-crisis world. This volume is divided into five parts. The introduction includes keynote speeches by the Governors of the Bank of Japan and Central Bank of Jordan. Part one focuses on macroeconomic theory for understanding macroeconomic fluctuations and crises. Part two addresses the issue of the measurement of wealth. Part three discusses macroeconomic policies in times of crises. Finally, part four focuses on central banking and monetary policy.

A concise analysis of the evolution of monetary policy and banking institutions over the past sixty years that stresses the dynamic interactions between the Federal Reserve and banking institutions that resulted from financial market innovations. Institutions were influenced by increasing competition in markets and monetary policies. The book consists of two parts, which are organized chronologically. The first has chapters that correspond with terms of chairmen of the Federal Reserve Board. It critically analyzes decisions taken by the Federal Open Market Committee in each period and argues that innovations forced changes in the design and conduct of monetary policy. The second part analyzes how banking institutions evolved from a very conservative and regulated system in 1945 to highly inventive financial firms and how this evolution has affected the distribution of credit, wealth, and income in the US.

In the face of globalization, workers feel less secure in their jobs and fear wage losses and unemployment. This book explores these issues, asking whether the concerns are warranted.It brings together recent work in an important and rapidly expanding area. It provides comprehensive coverage of both theoretical and empirical aspects. It takes popular concerns about globalization seriously.Although economists have long pointed to the aggregate gains from increased economic integration, the popular perception of globalization is much more pessimistic.

Arguing that Britain's sterling policy had a significant impact on its colonial economic policy, this book focuses on the connection between Britain's sterling and balance of payments policy, colonial economic policy, and the British government's decision to transfer power to colonial peoples. The volume considers such factors as sterling policy and the state of the British economy, U.S. and Western European pressure for multilateralism in Britain's trade and commercial policy, the movement toward independence in colonial territories, and the cost of financing colonial development and welfare. The book argues that in the postwar years the assumptions guiding British policies for colonial political reform were undermined by postwar developments in Ghana, Nigeria, and the Malayan Federation--the three greatest dollar-earning colonies. As these colonies moved toward independence, their demands for development finance forced Britain to face the prospect of meeting such demands at great costs when the expenditure could not be justified. Britain extricated itself from this dilemma by transferring power to colonial peoples.

This book investigates the contemporary functioning of financial institutions and monetary policies in order to assess their effects in different economic situations. It advances some proposals to improve their contribution towards a more stable and vigorous economy in the context of both developed and developing countries. This book includes important contributions on the theory and econometric testing of monetary policy strategies, hedging by firms, financial liberalization in Latin America and the role of financial institutions in promoting economic development.

What actually was the economic situation in 1929 and what happened to the stock market? Harold Bierman's fresh look at the Crash of '29 provides provocative answers that challenge the "facts" and overturn previously held assumptions concerning the catastrophic events that led to ten years of economic depression and very likely created the fertile soil of despair and unrest that ultimately led to World War II. This cogent re-evaluation takes a different tack and arrives at a different set of conclusions than John Kenneth Galbraith's classic overview of the period, The Great Crash. Echoes of the great stock market price declines that ended ten years of the greatest prosperity the U.S. had ever experienced have continued to reverberate down the corridors of history. Bierman believes that a more complete understanding of these past events can enhance current market decisions; that by accurately assessing the stock market crash of 1929-1932, readers can better grasp the present market situation and more wisely forecast the future. Arriving at drastically different conclusions from most widely read books on the subject, the 11-chapter study takes the position that the stock market was not unreasonably high in October of '29, asserting that, in fact, there was reason for optimism. Bierman presents sound explanations for the initial decline that are not dependent on the assumption of overvaluation. He also clarifies the vital distinction between speculation and investment and shows how President Herbert Hoover's "war on speculation" may have contributed to the crash and subsequent depression. The first chapter outlines seven commonly held myths regarding 1929. Other chapters compare the stockmarket and profitability of corporations; attempt to determine whether RCA stock was outrageously overpriced or merely a reasonably priced growth stock; and look at the 1931 banking system hearings. The Mitchell, Wiggin, and Insull affairs are all given new, fact-based twists. Final chapters examine margin buying, probability, and short selling, develop important perspectives on the crash of 1987, and extract valuable lessons to be learned. The book effectively refutes prior notions and replaces them with solidly built, readable explanations that are most relevant to history courses dealing with the period or courses on investment in common stock. Any general reader with an interest in early twentieth century history or in investment will find this a rewarding read.

This book provides a fully revised and up-to-date analysis of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). With four entirely new chapters on responses to the financial crisis and the debate on reform options, Tomann assesses the EMU in comparison with other currency regimes through the adoption of a historical analysis. The book discusses in detail basic issues with currency and comprehensively analyzes monetary policy, highlighting problems of policy coordination. Tomann explores new monetary institutions that have been established in response to the financial crisis, before addressing long-term issues and reviewing reform proposals. By focusing on monetary issues the book offers a better understanding of macroeconomic policies and international policy cooperation, and, by extension, provides a thorough economic assessment of the EMU as an institution as it stands today.

This book gathers selected papers from the 28th Eurasia Business and Economics Society (EBES) Conference, held in Coventry, United Kingdom. While the theoretical and empirical papers presented cover diverse areas of economics and finance in various geographic regions, the main focus is on the latest research concerning the economics of innovation, finance and macroeconomics. The book also includes regional studies.

This is the first comprehensive presentation of how monetary policymakers can use market prices to produce price stability. Drs. Johnson and Keleher show why other, conventional methods have failed and why market prices are superior guides for setting monetary policy. Their book presents the rationale, history, and philosophy underlying their approach; offers three forms of empirical research evidence to support it; and then presents special methods to use market prices as policy setting guides. Important and challenging reading for monetary policymakers and economists, bankers, financial analysts, and professional investors, as well as their colleagues in the academic community with similar interests.

Substantial changes involving revolutions in telecommunications and information processing, financial deregulation, and the global integration of financial markets have altered the environment in which central banks operate. This altered environment has undermined various conventional approaches to monetary policy. This book presents an alternative market price approach to monetary policy. The approach is easily adapted to the above-cited change: it adopts a price stabilization policy goal and uses key market prices from the commodity, foreign exchange, and bond markets as guides to policy. Commodity prices, foreign exchange rates, and bond yields represent proxies for the exchange rate between domestic money and (1) commodities, (2) foreign monies, and (3) future money (bonds), respectively. These market prices are assessed in conjunction with one another to yield policy guidance to the monetary authority. This book describes how this approach is carried out in practice. Empirical evidence support the approach from three perspectives. First, empirical support exists for each of the individual market price indicators examined in isolation. Second, market price indicators provided accurate signals for monetary policymakers during the post-Bretton Wood era. Had this market price approach been used by policymakers, the performance of the macroeconomy during this period likely would have been improved. Third, at least one historical episode demonstrates that when the approach was employed, economic performance was impressive, and price stability was, in fact, achieved.

The world is changing rapidly. The global economic crisis has called into question the political decisions that have been made by all countries for decades and has led to a re-formulation of tools and aims. Adjustments to the new situation are necessary and entail considerable economic and social costs. The Balkan and Black Sea area is an important reference point for the European and global economy. Accordingly, the study of the economic development in the area is of great interest, engaging politicians and scientists alike. Under this framework, the matter of the relation between the area's countries and the E.U., the role of the banking system and the importance of the primary sector of the economy as an important developmental factor for the countries' economies are of great importance. "

The main objective of this book is to identify the key sources of growth which have played a significant role in Africa's recent robust growth as well as its efforts towards economic transformation. The book assesses to what extent the existing macroeconomic frameworks among African countries have been streamlined to the countries' development priorities in order to achieve long-term growth and economic transformation. Taking into account the diversity of African countries, the authors establish the economic linkages between relevant macroeconomic policy variables and the key sources of growth and development among the selected African economies, based on both theoretical and empirical underpinnings. Following this, an outline of a macroeconomic framework for Africa's long-term growth and economic transformation is suggested.

The authors provide an intimate knowledge of the fundamentals required to cope with the everchanging nature of the money and foreign exchange markets. Its emphasis is on the management of down to earth operations, covering how to read and take advantage of market quotations, the funds manager and the interaction between money and foreign exchange markets, funds management in a two-way market, problems and solutions in the trading room of a bank, problems and solutions of the multinational non-financial business, returns and risks, in foreign exchange operations, and control of foreign exchange and money market operations. This new edition is updated to account for recent changes and expanded to emphasize and broaden the treatment of money markets.

Based on extensive primary source analysis and in-depth interviews with key figures in the field of public debt administration and policy development, this volume presents a comprehensive history of the U.S. public debt from 1775--when the first debt was incurred to finance the Revolutionary War--to the present. The authors document how the public debt has accumulated and review the methods the government has employed to manage and administer it. They describe the impact of wars, depressions, and macroeconomic policy on the growth of the debt and detail how the handling of the debt was linked to the evolution of the banking system. Their goal throughout is to put the current debt situation into historical perspective, providing an objective evaluation of both the current levels of debt growth and the effectiveness of debt management policies and administration.

Following an introductory chapter, the study is arranged chronologically and begins with three chapters which describe the management of the public debt through 1900--a period during which the public debt was relatively small and its management simple. The debt was small, the authors show, because prevailing attitudes toward public finance fostered a fiscal system that relied on balanced budgets, except in wartime. The remaining chapters focus on twentieth century debt growth, administration, and management. A shift in policy away from balanced budgets and a public attitude of less concern about payment of the public debt have made federal budget deficits the norm, the authors demonstrate, and such running deficits require complex debt administration measures. The evolution of the system of debt management and administration that is coordinated by the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, and the Bureau of Public Debt is a major focus of these chapters. Challenging the views of many analysts and observers, the authors conclude that the recent growth of the public debt is no greater than that which has occurred in other periods, and that government policies of debt management and administration have been effective and timely and have made good use of modern technology. An important contribution to the literature of economic history, this book will also be of significant interest to scholars in economic policy, economic theory, and public policy.

This volume revisits Karl Polanyi's analysis of the institutional separation of politics and the economy in the context of the nineteenth century market society to argue that the market economy is not a spontaneous process, but a "political project" realized through institutional changes whereby labor, land, money, and currently knowledge appear as commodities. The contributions explore the political dynamics of this commodification process, its implications for human life and livelihood, and the possibilities for the advent of a more viable order where the economy would be replaced under social control. With its interdisciplinary reach, the book is of interest to academics and graduate students in different fields such as economic sociology, political economy and social policy.

The story of this book began with my dif?cult transition from teaching international economics and econometrics in Economics Ph. D. programs at Harvard and UCLA to teaching in the MBA programs at the Anderson School at UCLA. On the basis of 20 years of apparent teaching success in Ph. D. education, I arrived at the Anderson School in 1990 with a self-image as a star teacher, but I was greeted with highly disturbingmediocreteachingevaluations. Facedwithadatasetthatwasinconsistent with my view of reality, I did what analysts usually do - I formulated a theory why the data were misleading. Here is how I thought about it. Two aspects of the course - content and amu- ment - drive numerical course evaluations. If you rank courses by the average of the content score and the amusement score, then the component that can be measured most accurately will determine the ranking. Do you understand why? It is what - eraging does: it eliminates the noise. Suppose, for example, that a student cannot tell anything about the content, and the content score is simply a random number, varying from student to student. Those random numbers will average out across students to about the same number for each course. As the average course content score is about the same for every course, it is the amusement score that will drive the rankings.

This study investigates the econometric properties of the demand-for-money function as it affects monetary policy. Particular emphasis is placed throughout on the general properties of conventional and alternative demand-for-money specifications and on the predictability of those specifications over time. The data sets used for the econometric work of this study constitute an important contribution for the empirical demand for money literature. Most of the existing literature on money demand has been based on U.S. data. An important criticism of that literature is that the various hypotheses about post-1974 demand for money in the United States have been tested on the same body of data that originally suggested the hypotheses. Grivoyannis here uses a new data set-the Japanese data base-for the first time, comparing the results with those obtained for the United States. The comparison is justified because of the significant similarities between the U.S. and Japanese monetary sectors. Thus Grivoyannis is able to reliably test proposed explanations for the recent abnormal behavior of U.S. money demand on a different set of data and offer important new insights into the general properties of money demand functions.

Grivoyannis begins by examining conventional short-run demand-for-money specifications, presenting estimation and simulation results from log-level and log-first-difference specifications for both countries. These results are then compared with data-driven best-variable specifications. In Chapter 2, the author separates the demand for real M1 into the demand for currency and the demand for demand deposits in order to determine the main source of the function's instability. Sectorally disaggregated demands for real M1 by money holder are also examined in depth. Alternative specifications, which attempt to take into consideration institutional events as well as financial innovation and deregulation, form the focus of the third chapter. Grivoyannis' conclusions support the general suspicion among policy makers that the assumed stability of the money demand relationship has collapsed. Required reading for scholars of monetary policy, econometrics, and macroeconomics, this study will also be of significant interest to students of international finance and banking.

Has Japan developed its own unique economic model? For years, Americans concerned about the Japanese economic challenge have heatedly debated this question. Now, a senior Japanese government official weighs in with a resounding 'Yes.' In this work, Eisuke Sakakibara of the powerful Japanese Finance Ministry describes the fundamental, structural differences between the American and Japanese economies, defends the Japanese approach, and warns that U.S. policies seeking to Americanize our strongest competitor are doomed to fail. This ground-breaking study is vital reading for anyone concerned about the world's two economic superpowers and the global economy being shaped by their rivalry. Co-published with the Economic Strategy Institute.

A worsening economic crisis due to the shift in wealth over the past decade is the central concern of this carefully documented study. It profiles the current status of income inequality in the United States and discerns disturbing trends for the future. A wealth of data are collected, evaluated, and simplified into a straightforward look at both the economic changes brought on by misguided reforms of the 1980s and a proposed system for measuring income inequality which may help clarify the issues pertinent to the debate.

Folke Dovring perceives the current U.S. economy as an imminent threat to our democratic system, and urges increased awareness of the variables which will effect its return to a healthy state of balance where income inequality, necessary to a certain degree, sustains productivity and individual incentives. A general overview of the facts and problems associated with income distribution, viewed from historical, geographical, and sociological perspectives, establishes the study's priorities, and is followed by the development of criteria which can more accurately estimate the nature and extent of income inequality, moving the study closer to recommendations for systematic public policy which may promote continued economic growth. The urgency with which Dovring addresses this topic and the thoroughness of his presentation will compel scholars and policymakers, especially those interested in poverty economics, to give immediate attention to the issue of economic inequality through informed, meaningful discussion.

In this groundbreaking new study, Clements assesses the impact of alternative foreign trade strategies--export promotion and import substitution--on employment and income distribution in Brazil. The first work to evaluate specifically the impact of Brazil's foreign trade policies on income distribution, this volume uses a modified input-output technique to assess income distribution questions.