The introduction of the euro was an important event for the world economy and the international political system. For the first time in history, a substantial group of European countries-eleven of the fifteen members of the European Union including three members of the G-7-have voluntarily agreed to replace their national currencies with a single currency. The euro area has already become established as the second largest currency area in the world and will therefore become a major player in the international monetary system. The creation of the euro poses a number of interesting questions. Will the euro be a strong or a weak currency? Will the euro challenge the leading position hitherto held by the United States dollar and would sharing of the burdens and advantages of reserve currency status improve or worsen the stability of the international monetary system? How will the euro affect US relations with Europe? Does the formation of the euro intensify European integration in other fields? Is a bi-polar international monetary system viable? These and other issues motivated the Luxembourg Institute for European and International Studies and the Pierre Werner Foundation to organize an international conference in Luxembourg on December 3-4, 1998, on the eve of the birth of the euro. At the outset we were aware that the issue of the euro went far beyond pure economics. Money, after all, is too important a subject to be left to economists.

Leading scholars analyze a range of specific departures from general equilibrium theory which have significant implications for the macroeconomic analysis of both developed and developing economies. Jacques Drèze considers uncertainty and incomplete markets and Nobel Laureate Robert Solow relates growth theory to the macroeconomic framework. Other issues examined are the implications for macro-policy of new research, including Joseph Stiglitz's warning on the misplaced zeal for financial market liberalization which partly engendered the East Asian and Russian crises.

Macesich's latest book argues that the poor performance of monetary policy can be attributed to the ease with which money slips into the political arena to become a singularly important political issue. Discretionary authority facilitates monetary manipulation for political ends, thereby increasing uncertainty and casting doubt on money, the monetary system, and indeed the monetary authority itself. The author traces the evolution of the debate over rules versus discretionary authority and discusses various methods that economists have proposed for constrain the monetary authority. If monetary policy is to be credible and thus successful, the hands of monetary policy makers are better tied than left free.

This work by a noted authority on monetary theory and policy will interest economists in academia and the policy-making community.

Paul Davidson is one of America's most prolific academic economists. Editor of the "Journal of Post-Keynesian Economics" and holder of the Holly chair of Excellence at the University of Tennessee, Professor Davidson has written broadly over thirty years on topics as diverse as income distribution, oil and natural resource use, economietric models, finance and financial markets, inflation, and unemployment.

This two volume work contains most of Davidson's professional journal articles, a number of previously unpublished papers, and a sample of his policiy oriented testimonies before Congress, the Federal Communications Commission and bank regulators.

The topics addressed in this collection among others are: monetary theory and policy; employment theory; and income distribution and inflation.

Two years ago, the Guido Carli Association, in collaboration with the Aspen Institute Italia, charged a group of distinguished economists to examine the problems created by the unsatisfactory functioning of the International Monetary System. The two resulting conferences were sponsored by the Fondazione della Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze (CESIFIN) and the Permanent Advisory Committee on the Euro and the Dollar (PACE&D). Their research had a two-fold aim. The first was an examination of the basic function of the International Monetary System with a special focus on the role the Euro would and should have. The second was the preparation of a list of recommendations on how to resolve the problems, financial problems in particular, affecting the entire world community. Last year, the group focused on efforts taking place in diverse financial institutions and universities to construct what has been called the New International Financial Architecture'. This group considered the legal problems arising from European and international integration and, more generally, from the new architecture of the International Monetary System. This book, The New Architecture of the International Monetary System, is the final result of their efforts. It will be an invaluable resource for academics, professionals, and students alike.

European monetary unification has produced a $15 trillion windfall to its member nations that is rarely discussed or accounted for in analyses of economic integration. Edmunds and Marthinsen argue that the reduction in cross-border risks--foreign exchange uncertainty, inflation differentials, competitive devaluations, and protectionism in financial services, among other--is directly responsible for an explosion in the value of fixed income assets and share prices. They explain how this wealth accumulation began to accrue even before the Euro was formally adopted. Could the same thing happen in Latin America or Asia?

Elegantly written and cogently argued, this book explores the ramifications of currency unification for each region in three scenarios: partial unification, dollarization, and full unification. The authors compute the increases in wealth created by these various levels of currency unification, provide spreadsheet models that examine the connections between the growth of financial wealth and real economic growth, and emphasize differentials in economic wealth among regions with time series maps that resize nations according to equity markets rather than geography.

Intellectual time lags exist in every field of science. So it is that even today one often hears the same old "common knowledge" nonsense and simplistic analysis from the early post-Keynesian era when students learned about some of the monetary and fiscal policies applicable to the U.K. and its institutions (Keynes) on the premise that they are also applicable to the U.S. Many are not. The result has all too often been inflation or massive unemployment that continues even though it could be quickly ended without fiscal changes or new laws.

This is a re-presentation of Professor Lindauer's early ground-breaking work from the 1960s. It explains why not all Keynesian and neo-classical theory and monetary and fiscal policies are applicable to the unique structure and institutions of the United States and how the current United States' malaise can be quickly ended - via a new approach to monetary policy, long ago explained by Lindauer and adopted by other countries.

It was while at Claremont as professor of economics that Lindauer first modeled the concept of aggregate supply and related it with the concept of aggregate demand to develop many of the macroeconomic theories presented herein and integrate them into the then-existing theories of inflation and unemployment.

Importantly in these days of high unemployment, the unique and quickly effective monetary policies he suggested years ago to end recessions and depressions without causing inflation or exacerbating government deficits are today immediately available without requiring fiscal changes or the passage of new laws and regulations.

Professor Lindauer's other publications include "Land Taxation and Indian Economic Development" (with Sarjit Singh); various editions of his "Macroeconomics" series; and his early ground-breaking journal articles such as ""Stabilization Inflation and the Inflation-Unemployment Trade-off."" A non-technical version of this work is available as "Inflations, Unemployment, and Government Deficits: End Them." It is suitable for journalists, laymen, and lawyers serving as Federal Reserve governors.

Lindauer's books have been translated into Japanese, Spanish, Portugese, Korean, Hindi, and Chinese and the policies his theories suggest implemented by central banks around the world. He has additionally served as a visiting professor at Sussex University, the University of California (SD), and Punjab University. He lives in Scottsdale and Chicago. His teaching is limited to lectures and visiting professorships.

This volume is the second collection of the series of lectures, held annually at City University, London, in honour of Henry Thornton, the renowned 19th Century monetary economist. As with Monetary Economics in the 1980s (0-333-46220-3), the essays by extremely eminent contributors are wide-ranging in both subject and approach but all develop topics considered by Henry Thornton over a century ago and link historical perspectives to contemporary debates about financial institutions and monetary economics.

This book analyses the causes and consequences of deflation. In contrast to the widespread belief that deflation would be harmful to the economy as a whole, the author argues that free market deflation is liberating and beneficial. Several myths of deflation are exposed and the reasons for the widespread deflation phobia that serves to justify expansionary monetary policy, i.e., inflation are investigated. Two historical case studies, the growth deflation in the US after the Civil War and the bank credit deflation in Germany during the Great Depression are discussed to illustrate the points made in the theoretical analysis of deflation.

This book presents a forecasting mechanism of the price intervals for deriving the SCR (solvency capital requirement) eradicating the risk during the exercise period on one hand and measuring the risk by computing the hedging exit time function associating with smaller investments the date until which the value of the portfolio hedges the liabilities on the other. This information, summarized under the term "tychastic viability measure of risk" is an evolutionary alternative to statistical measures, when dealing with evolutions under uncertainty. The book is written by experts in the field and the target audience primarily comprises research experts and practitioners.

This book provides an account of what may happen to the energy sector in the former Soviet Union (FSU) in the medium to long-run, under alternative scenarios for macroeconomic reform. The analyses reveal the serious damage of the oil resource base caused by the reckless exploitation practices of the past. Production of oil and coal can recover only slowly from the doldrums of the early 1990s, but the potential to expand gas output is very considerable. Energy consumption practices have been extremely wasteful in the past. The total savings potential that could be accomplished as energy prices are allowed to rise, and incentives to economise on energy use are introduced, is huge. The likely evolution of FSU energy exports until 2005 is also explored, and the impact that changing export flows could have on the international prices of oil, coal and natural gas, is discussed in detail.

This book describes and explains the remarkably large rural-urban divide in economic well-being that exists in China, tracing the root causes, present effects, and future implications for the increasingly marketized Chinese economy. It uses the rigorous analysis and empirical methodology of modern economics. Primarily aimed at a broad readership of development and transition economists, China specialists will also find much that is of interest.

Monetary union has dawned in Europe. Now that the common currency is a reality, questions concerning the practical conduct of monetary policy in the European Monetary Union (EMU) are moving to the forefront of the policy debate. Among these, one of the most critical is how the new monetary union will cope with the large heterogeneity of its member economies. Given the large differences in economic and financial structures among the EMU member states, monetary policy is likely to affect different member economies in different ways. Regional Aspects of Monetary Policy in Europe collects the proceedings of an international conference held at the Center for European Integration Studies of the University of Bonn, dedicated to this issue. The contributions to this conference fall into two parts. The first part consists of empirical and theoretical studies of the regional effects of monetary policy in heterogeneous monetary unions. The second part consists of papers analyzing the political economy of monetary policy in a monetary union of heterogeneous regions or member states. The papers all support the conclusion that regional differences in the responses to a common monetary policy will make European monetary policy especially difficult in the years to come. Such differences arise from a variety of sources, and they cannot be expected to be mere teething troubles that will disappear after a while. Even if they were ignored in the run-up to the EMU, Europe's central bankers and economic policy makers will have to learn how to cope with such differences in the future.

"Provides a comprehensive analysis of why reforms in Latin America have failed in achieving growth and equity. The book focuses on three strategic areas of reforms of the Washington Consensus: Macroeconomics, Trade and Finance. Identifies main analytical inconsistencies in the market fundamentalism that has dominated present reforms. In a firmly based policy-oriented approach, Ffrench-Davis offers alternative policies to reform the reforms in the three areas of macroeconomics, trade and finance, seeking for sustained equitable growth."--BOOK JACKET.

The basic motivation for this book is my lifelong interest in the relationship between political processes and macroeconomic outcomes, especially in the area of monetary policy. Nowadays, monetary policy is an area where political considerations are believed by scholars to regularly impact upon economic results. In contrast, when my interest in this subject began thirty years ago, the scholarly literature on monetary policy hardly ever mentioned systematic political influences. My dissertation at the University of Illinois in 1966 and my first article (in the Joumal of Political Economy in 1967) addressed the modeling and estimation of the concerns that propel monetary policy. In the political and economic turbulence of the period from the late 1960s through the early 1980s, it became clear that the directions taken by monetary policy were changing with some frequency. My research during that period dealt with models of monetary policy. In attempting to measure these changes, it suggested that monetary policy reactions to the state of the economy were not stable over time. During this period I became interested in reforms which might reduce the resulting instability in the economy. For example, my 1972 article in the Joumal of Political Economy suggested systematic penalties Federal Reserve officials who failed to meet the goal of monetary stability by tying their budgets or salaries inversely to the rate of inflation.

Development Macroeconomics in Latin America and Mexico brings the attention of academics, practitioners, and policy makers to the neglected macroeconomic factors that can account for both the unsatisfactory average growth performance of Latin American and the diversity around this average.

One of the most enduring questions in economics involves how a nation could accelerate the pace of its economic development. One of the most enduring answers to this question is to promote exports -either because doing so directly influences development via encouraging production of goods for export, or because export promotion permits accumulation of foreign exchange which permits importation of high-quality goods and services, which can in turn be used to expand the nation's production possibilities. In either case, growth is said to be export-led; the latter case is the so-called "two-gap" hypothesis (McKinnon, 1964; Findlay, 1973). The early work on export-led growth consisted of static cross-country com parisons (Michaely, 1977; Balassa, 1978; Tyler, 1981; Kormendi and Meguire, 1985). These studies generally concluded that there is strong evidence in favour of export-led growth because export growth and income growth are highly correlated. However, Kravis pointed out in 1970 that the question is an essen tially dynamic one: as he put it, are exports the handmaiden or the engine of growth? To make this determination one needs to look at time series to see whether or not exports are driving income. This approach has been taken in a number of papers (Jung and Marshall, 1985; Chow, 1987; Serletis, 1992; Kunst and Marin, 1989; Marin, 1992; Afxentiou and Serletis, 1991), designed to assess whether or not individual countries exhibit statistically significant evidence of export-led growth using Granger causality tests."

Motivated by the recent proliferation of fiscal consolidation episodes in the advent of Monetary Union, this book explains the causes and consequences of fiscal policy in Europe. This book answers three related questions: What explains the timing of fiscal adjustments? What explains their different duration and composition? What are the economic and political consequences of having implemented different adjustment strategies?

In the late nineteenth century, controversy over the social ramifications of the emerging consumer marketplace beset the industrialized nations of the West. In France, various commentators expressed concern that rampant commercialization threatened the republican ideal of civic-mindedness as well as the French reputation for good taste. The female bourgeois consumer was a particularly charged figure because she represented consumption run amok. Critics feared that the marketplace compromised her morality and aesthetic discernment, with dire repercussions for domestic life and public order.
"Marianne in the Market" traces debates about the woman consumer to examine the complex encounter between the market and the republic in nineteenth-century France. It explores how agents of capitalism--advertisers, department store managers, fashion journalists, self-styled taste experts--addressed fears of consumerism through the forging of an aesthetics of the marketplace: a "marketplace modernism." In so doing, they constructed an image of the bourgeois woman as the solution to the problem of unrestrained, individualized, and irrational consumption. Commercial professionals used taste to civilize the market and to produce consumers who would preserve the French aesthetic patrimony. Tasteful consumption legitimized women's presence in the urban public and reconciled their roles as consumers with their domestic and civic responsibilities.
A fascinating case study, "Marianne in the Market" builds on a wide range of sources such as the feminine press, decorating handbooks, exposition reports, advertising materials, novels, and etiquette books. Lisa Tiersten draws on these materials to make the compelling argument that market professionals used the allure of aesthetically informed consumerism to promote new models of the female consumer and the market in keeping with Republican ideals.

Lack of coordination of fiscal and monetary policies, disregard for the high degree of inflation persistency, unstable relations and bilateral causality between money supply and inflation, all imply an inappropriateness of money-based stabilizations for the transition economy of postcommunist Russia conducted under the auspices of the IMF. As a representative of the West, the IMF pretended to aid Russians through stabilisation. The IMF promised loans while the Russian government promised reforms. This turned out to be a pseudo lending for pseudo reforms with disastrous consequences for the Russian economy as explored and scrutinized in this volume.

This work provides a statement of post-Keynesian macroeconomic theory, focusing on the significance of privately created inside debts and income distribution for the determination of economic activity. It highlights the coherence of post-Keynesian macroeconomics, and analyzes its distinctive differences from conventional macroeconomic theory.

An authoritative and wide-ranging analysis of current issues and dilemmas in the European Union's relations with the developing world. The book brings together politicians, academics and policy-makers to address recent experience and the way ahead after the EU's leading policy, the Lome Convention, expires in February 2000. Development policy in the various member states and at EU level and the prospects for furthering the international community's human rights and good governance agenda are examined in detail. This thorough assessment of one of the EU's oldest, most important and yet little known policy fields will be of use to scholars and students of development, of European integration and international relations.

This book provides cutting-edge material elaborating on monetary circuit theory and post-Keynesian monetary economics. It contributes to a new approach to monetary analysis, which provides original insights into the complex fields of money, banking, and finance.

This book, as a comprehensive, in-depth analysis of one of the fastest-growing industries in China, covers all the most important areas and issues in the country's online lending industry. It includes, but is not limited to, the history of online lending, the scale of the online lending market, the basic business models in and a risk analysis of online lending, the characteristics of typical online-lending borrowers and investors/lenders, the root causes of bankruptcy among failed online lending platforms, a comparative analysis of online lending platforms inside and outside China, the overall ranking of online lending platforms in China and finally, the outlook for the online lending industry in the future. The integration of Internet and finance has, in recent years, been among the most notable topics discussed in the media, the business community and academia, both in China and worldwide. The chapters are supplemented with detailed case studies, which include illustrations and tables and the book combines theoretical analysis with conceptual discussions of and best practices in the online lending industry. It will be of interest to a variety of readers worldwide, including: (1) existing and potential online borrowers; (2) existing and potential online lenders; (3) investors and professionals running online lending platforms; (4) traditional bankers and major shareholders in traditional financial institutions; (5) staff in regulatory government agencies; (6) academics; and (7) the general public.