First published in 1992, this title conducts an in-depth examination of the investment behaviour of pension funds, presenting the first econometric model in this area. Using the well-established framework of modern portfolio theory, David Blake derives a model of optimal portfolio behaviour that explains pension fund asset holdings in terms of the most important macroeconomic and cyclical indicators. He shows how factors such as industry profitability, the balance of payments and the monetary and fiscal policies of the government influence pension fund investments. Broad in scope, this reissue will be of particular value to students and academics with an interest in econometrics, investment analysis and the pension fund industry.

This edited collection assesses the level of financial integration in the European Union (EU) and the differences across the countries and segments of the EU financial system. Progress in financial integration is key to the EU s economic growth and competitiveness and although it has advanced substantially, the process is still far from completion. This book focuses on the pace of financial integration in the EU with special emphasis on the new EU Member States and investigates their progress in comparison with old EU countries.

The book is the first of its kind to include and evaluate the effects of the global financial crisis on the process of EU financial integration. In particular, the book s contributors address the issue of whether a high degree of financial integration contributed to the intensification of the financial crisis, or whether a low level of integration prevented countries and financial industries from some of the negative effects of the crisis. Although most of the chapters apply contemporary econometric tools, the technical part is always reduced to indispensable minimum and the emphasis is given to economic interpretation of the results. The book aims to offer an up to date and insightful examination of the process of financial integration in the EU today. "

Kevin Dowd asserts that state intervention into financial and monetary systems has failed, and that we would be better off if financial markets were left to regulate themselves. This collection will appeal to students, researchers and policy makers in the monetary and financial area.

Can money improve economic organization? Between 1909 and 1917, Gustavo Del Vecchio, an Italian economist, developed a theory of circulation. In a series of articles he set out his thoughts on the utility and value of money, credit, discount rates, banking and international payments. Tusset re-evaluates Del Vecchio's theory, concluding that money represents a technology which organizes both economy and society.

This volume takes a unique and challenging look at how money has operated in Islamic society and at how Islamic theoretical frameworks have influenced perceptions of money. The author draws upon historical, data and policy analysis to present a comparative study of monetary theories, including recent treatment of money by Islamic economists. Discussion also covers the nature of joint venture, stock markets, banks and financial intermediaries, price stability and international trade. This work sheds pioneering light in this area, and will be of interest to academics, graduates and researchers internationally.

This book, written by an international team of economists, develops concrete, country specific alternatives to inflation targeting, the dominant policy framework of central bank policy that focuses on keeping inflation in the low single digits to the virtual exclusion of other key goals such as employment creation, poverty reduction and sustainable development. The book includes thematic chapters, including analyses of class attitudes toward inflation and unemployment and the gender impacts of restrictive monetary policy. Other chapters propose improved monetary frameworks for Argentina, Brazil, India, Mexico, the Philippines, South Africa, Turkey, and Vietnam. Policy frameworks that are explored include employment targeting, and targeting a stable and competitive real exchange rate. The authors also show that to reach a larger number of targets, including higher employment and stable inflation, central banks must use a larger number of instruments, including capital management techniques. This volume offers concrete, socially valuable alternatives that economists, policy makers, students and interested laypeople should consider before adopting one size fits all, often inadequate, policies that have become a virtual policy making fad.

This book investigates the interaction of effective goods demand with the wage-price spiral, and the impact of monetary policy on financial and the real markets from a Keynesian perspective. Endogenous business fluctuations are studied in the context of long-run distributive cycles in an advanced, rigorously formulated and quantitative setup. The material is developed by way of self-contained chapters on three levels of generality, an advanced textbook level, a research-oriented applied level and on a third level that shows how the interaction of real with financial markets has to be modelled from a truly integrative Keynesian perspective. Monetary Macrodynamics shows that the balanced growth path of a capitalist economy is unlikely to be attracting and that the cumulative forces that surround it are controlled in the large by changes in the behavioural factors that drive the wage-price spiral and the financial markets. Such behavioural changes can in fact be observed in actual economies in the interaction of demand-driven business fluctuations with supply-driven wage and price dynamics as they originate from the conflict over income distribution between capital and labour. The book is a detailed critique of US mainstream macroeconomics and uses rigorous dynamic macro-models of a descriptive and applicable nature. It will be of particular relevance to postgraduate students and researchers interested in disequilibrium processes, real wage feedback channels, financial markets and portfolio choice, financial accelerator mechanisms and monetary policy.

Foreign Exchange Markets presents a selection of classic finance and economics articles on key topics in the behavior of exchange rates and the analysis of foreign exchange markets. The editor has written an authoritative introduction to the literature. The volume comprises five sections which cover a range of topics. The first section deals with fundamental analysis and the second with statistical models of exchange rate behavior. The third section discusses technical analysis and the fourth covers central bank intervention. The fifth section looks at the micro structure of foreign exchange markets. Many of the papers deal with analysis of daily or intra-day data. The papers are chosen to blend theory and empirics.

Can the euro area survive without a more centralized economic policy? What lessons can be drawn from Economic and Monetary Union about new modes of policy-making in the European Union? Have euro area members spoken with one voice on the international stage and what does this mean for the European Union's ambitions to be a global actor in its own right? This book explores these three key questions through an in-depth analysis of euro area governance from the launch of the single currency in 1999 to the sovereign debt crisis of 2010. Drawing insights from the study of European Union politics, comparative political economy and international political economy, it examines: Economic and Monetary Union's break from the Community method of policy-making; the European Central Bank's ambivalence about the pursuit of ever closer union; the Eurogroup's rise and fall as a forum for economic policy coordination; the interplay between national fiscal institutions and the stability and growth pact; the broad economic policy guidelines' failure to apply peer pressure; the European Union's influence within the G20 and the International Monetary Fund at the height of the global financial crisis; euro diplomacy towards China and other rising powers; and current debates about the fate of EMU and the reform of euro area governance in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. The book's conclusions challenge claims that the euro area is in crisis because of its decentralized approach to decision-making alone and the corollary that the euro can be saved only through a further transfer of sovereignty to the supranational level.

The New International Monetary System brings together twelve original contributions by leading scholars and practitioners to a conference convened in May 2008 on the occasion of the retirement of Alexander Swoboda. The contributions are arranged in three main parts. Part I deals with the international financial architecture, Part II examines the ever-controversial role of exchange rate regimes and Part III takes stock of the conduct of monetary policy and the challenges posed by the inflation-targeting strategy. The chapters provide considered assessments of virtually all the hotly debated issues that concern monetary policies seen from an international perspective. Edited by and with an introduction from Charles Wyplosz, the collection includes contributions from some of the key international figures in the field of monetary policy, central banking and exchange rate regimes to discuss contemporary international monetary issues. Contributors include Michael Bordo, Barry Eichengreen, Ronald McKinnon and Charles Goodhart. The volume also contains tributes from Paul Volcker and Jean-Pierre Roth.

The spillover effect of multinational companies has, historically, been subject to much debate. The assumption that the host country can be expected to enjoy spillovers - improvements in the balance of payments, in the influx of foreign currency and in other sectors of the economy not directly affected by the multinational - has not necessarily been corroborated in practice. First published in 1989, this book addresses this debate, and the very different conclusions that can be drawn about spillovers. Reporting on significant research on Latin America and drawing comparisons with findings elsewhere, Foreign Investment and Spillovers provides students and researchers with a truly international perspective.

These essays bring together a progression in monetary theory. The major theme that runs through all of the chapters is that in order to do monetary economics well in general equilibrium, it helps to have a good money demand underlying the theory. A proper underlying money demand sets up arguably the best foundation from which to make extensions of monetary economics from the basic model. At the same time that money demand is modelled, this also "endogenizes" the velocity of money. This has been a challenge in the literature that these essays solve and then use to extend basic neoclassical growth and business cycle theory. Solving this problem, in a way that is a natural, direct, and "micro-founded" extension of the standard monetary theory is the first major contribution of the collection. The second major contribution is the extension of the neoclassical monetary models, using this solution, to reinvigorate classic issues of monetary economics and take them to the frontier.

Written during the early 1920s, at a time when Europe was still recovering from the catastrophe of the First World War, L.V. Birck's The Scourge of Europe examines the economic issues surrounding the existence of public debt, its history, and possible approaches to problems associated with public debt as they were being pursued by the great powers of the time. Birck's analysis contains a rigorous theoretical exposition and explanation of public debt as it was understood in the crucial period leading up to the Great Depression. This is then followed by an insightful exploration of the role of public debt in European financial and economic history. Finally, some reflections on the policies of England, the United States, France and Germany in the latter part of the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries are included. This book will appeal to economic and financial historians, as well as to those generally interested in European policies towards debt from the Middle Ages to modern times.

This collection of seminal papers examines how economies behave under deflationary conditions. The volumes cover both theoretical and empirical aspects of this important subject. The editor presents articles exploring whether, and under what conditions, deflation can lead to beneficial economic outcomes, and also articles emphasizing that deflation should be avoided at all costs. Further sections examine specialized topics of the economics of deflation; including wage rigidities, the liquidity trap, and the zero lower bound of interest rates. A selection of important case studies of economies in deflation completes this comprehensive collection.

In its pursuit of economic integration, economic and monetary union (EMU) had become a primary commitment for the European Community. Originally published in 1974, this study sets out to examine the meaning of economic union and its relationship with monetary union. The contributors look at the problems and costs for attaining economic union for the member states of the EEC at the time. Steven Robson writes on economic management. Paul Woolley examines the integration of capital markets. Santosh Mukherjee looks at the implications of labour market policy. Geoffrey Denton and Adam Ridley consider the impact of economic and monetary union on regional problems. Alan Prest is concerned with tax harmonisation specifically Value Added Tax and Corporation Tax and Douglas Dosser discusses the development of a European Community budget. Though the long-term benefits of EMU were clear, in the short term it would impose strains and pressures on national economies and particular sectors within them. This study goes a long way to clarifying where these difficulties would arise and suggests some ways of coping with them.

Austrian economist, Ludwig von Mises, was one of the most original and controversial economists of the 20th century, both as a defender of free-market liberalism and a leading opponent of socialism and the interventionist-welfare state. He was both the grant designer of a political economy of freedom and a trenchant, detailed critic of government regulatory and monetary policies in the first half of the 20th century. This fascinating book explores the cultural currents of anti-Semitism in Austria before and after the First World War that Mises confronted as an Austrian Jew; his analysis of Austria-Hungary's establishment of a gold standard; Mises' multi-sided activities in the years after the World War I in stemming a hyperinflation, opposing government fiscal mismanagement, and resisting misguided policies during the Great Depression; and his analysis of how Europe plunged into World War II and the policies to restore freedom and prosperity in the post-war period. It also discusses the confrontation between the Austrian Economists and the Keynesians over the causes and cures for the Great Depression, as well as how Mises' "Austrian" approach to money and the business cycle contrasted with both the ideas of Joseph A. Schumpeter and the Swedish Economists of the interwar period. This volume breaks new ground in placing Ludwig von Mises' many original views on political economy, public policy and monetary economics in the historical context of his time, especially during the interwar period when he was a senior economic analyst for the Vienna Chamber of Commerce and after his arrival in America during World War II. The book will therefore be of interest to students and researchers in monetary economics, political economy, expectations theory and the market process, and the history of economic thought.

This book is based on a conference celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Deutsche Bundesbank. Since the 1950s, there have been fundamental changes in the monetary order and financial systems, in our understanding of the effects of monetary policy, the best goals for central banks and the appropriate institutional setting of central banks. Prominent monetary economists and central bankers give their views on the most significant developments during this period and the lessons we should draw from them. The book contains four sections on central issues. The first part discusses the main successes and failures of monetary policy since the 1950s. The second part asks what economists have learned about monetary policy over the past 50 years. It gives an overview on experiences with various monetary strategies, focusing in particular on monetary targeting and its problems, on inflation targeting and why it was successful and the institutional framework for monetary policy. The next section outlines the progress that monetary economists have made since the Bundesbank was founded and discusses the extent to which central banks can rely on "scientific" principles. The final part describes the interaction between monetary policy, fiscal policy and labour markets. The book provides a comprehensive overview of the main challenges faced by central bankers in the past and how and to what extent monetary economics have been helpful in tackling them. It outlines our current knowledge about the effects of monetary policy and the appropriate institutional framework for central banks and raises some open questions for the future. It will be of great interest to monetary economists, central bankers and economic historians.

First studied by Swiss economist Jean-Charles Leonard Sismonde de Sismondi in 1819, "Making Markets and Making Money: Strategy and Monetary Exchange" examines the strategic aspects of monetary exchange--specifically, of making markets.

Economist Bernard C. Beaudreau, author of "Mass Production, the Stock Market Crash," and "The Great Depression: The Macroeconomics of Electrification," examines the strategic aspects of making markets using basic game theory. Drawing from the archaeological and historical records, Beaudreau documents the prevalence of coordination failures in trade in general, and monetary exchange in particular. He argues, convincingly, that the ability to execute trades (make markets) has been, is, and will continue to be a more important economic problem that scarcity itself.

This book provides a perspective on a number of financial modelling analytics and risk management. The book begins with extensive outline of GLM estimation techniques combined with the proof of its fundamental results. Applications of static and dynamic models provide a unified approach to the estimation of nonlinear risk models. The book then examines the definition of risks and their management, with particular emphasis on the importance of bi-modal distributions for financial regulation. Chapters also cover the implications of stress testing and the noncyclical CAR (Capital Adequacy Rule). The next section highlights financial modelling analytic approaches and techniques including an overview of memory based financial models, spanning non-memory models, long run and short memory. Applications of these models are used to highlight their variety and their importance to Financial Analytics. Subsequent chapters offer an extensive overview of multi-fractional models and their important applications to Asset price modeling (from Fractional to Multi-fractional Processes), and a look at the binomial pricing model by discussing the effects of memory on the pricing of asset prices. The book concludes with an examination of an algorithmic future perspective to real finance.

The chapters in "Future Perspectives in Risk Models and Finance" are concerned with both theoretical and practical issues. Theoretically, financial risks models are models of certainty, based on information and rules that are both available and agree to by their user. Empirical and data finance however, has provided a bridge between theoretical constructs risks models and the empirical evidence that these models entail. Numerous approaches are then used to model financial risk models, emphasizing mathematical and stochastic models based on the fundamental theoretical tenets of finance and others departing from the fundamental assumptions of finance. The underlying mathematical foundations of these risks models provide a future guideline for risk modeling. Both static and dynamic risk models are then considered. The chapters in this book provide selective insights and developments, that can contribute to a greater understanding the complexity of financial modelling and its ability to bridge financial theories and their practice. Risk models are models of uncertainty, and therefore all risk models are an expression of perceptions, priorities, needs and the information we have. In this sense, all risks models are complex hypotheses we have constructed and based on what we have or believe . Risk models are then challenged by their definition, are risk definition defining in fact prospective risks? By their estimation, what data can we apply to estimate risk processes and how can we do so? How should we use the data and the models at hand for useful and constructive end. "

All Fall Down traces the ways in which changes in financial structure and regulation eroded monetary control and led to historically high levels of debt relative to GDP in both developed and emerging economies. Rising stocks of debt drove the global financial system into crisis in 2008 when households, businesses, financial institutions and the public sector in some countries strained to generate sufficient income for debt service. The stagnation and fall in asset prices that followed began the process of unwinding that led to a run on the financial sector by the financial sector. This engaging examination describes critical developments that changed the structure of US financial markets as well as developments and innovations in US credit markets that created the context for crisis. It discusses the advent of dollar hegemony, the critical role of international reserves in generating credit, the emergence of the debt bubble in the 1980s and the mounting risks of debt in the new millennium. The author also proposes a systemic approach to monetary control, offering two new reform proposals. The analysis concludes that reforms are needed in order to support sustainable economic activity in the US and global economies. This volume will appeal to students and scholars of economics interested in international finance and banking, financial regulation and monetary policy implementation. It will also be of interest to business economists, lawyers, policymakers and journalists concerned with the effects of financial instability and involved in ongoing debates on financial and monetary reform.

Notwithstanding financial crises, global foreign exchange markets have undergone a tremendous growth during the last two decades. Foreign exchange (FX) is often thought of as a site where economic actors exchange currencies for buying foreign goods or selling goods in foreign countries, but the FX markets are better understood as financial spheres, dominated by speculative actors. A key question is how this huge global speculative sphere has developed, and what maintains it. Thus far, global currency markets have been largely neglected by the new approaches to finance, and until now no study has existed to chart the interplay of their structural evolution and their shape as knowledge spheres. This new book offers a systematic study of FX markets from a knowledge sociological perspective, empirically focussing on analysts within these markets. It makes the argument that market structures are reflected in, and become stabilised by, distinct cultures of financial expertise. These cultures connect the actions and perceptions of loosely coupled, globally distributed market players, and establish shared sets of strategies of how to observe, valuate and invest. This highly original book will be of interest to scholars of economics, sociology and political science, and in particular to all those with an interest in the sociology of finance and the role of finance in the contemporary world.

Since the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998, there has been a deep and abiding desire on the part of Asian policy makers and opinion makers to enhance the region's economic, monetary and financial self-sufficiency - or at least to ring-fence the region against financial instability and give it a louder voice in global financial affairs. There has been progress in these directions, notably in the form of the Chiang Mai Initiative of financial supports and the Asian Bond Market Initiative to build a single Asian financial market. But progress is hindered by disagreements among the principal national governments - Japan, China and South Korea - and resistance to the development of an Asian bloc from both Europe and the United States.This volume considers these issues from a number of different national and analytical perspectives. Scholars from all the relevant regions and countries are represented: Japan, China, Korea, Europe and the United States. While there have been a few previous books and articles concerned with the issue of Asian integration, this is one of the first volumes to successfully draw together top contributors from these different countries and regions to address the issues in a rigorous but relatively accessible way.

The term Purchasing Power Parity may date from the early twentieth century, when it was coined by the Swedish economist Gustav Cassel, but the underlying concept had been enjoying varying degrees of success since its development in sixteenth century Spain. Even towards the end of the twentieth century, and especially since the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates, PPP and the stability of real exchange rates continued to be the subject of academic debate. This volume brings together essays covering aspects of current thinking on Purchasing Power Parity, from the various ways in which to test for its existence, to its appearance in different economies around the world, to examinations of the explanations given when PPP does not appear to hold This book was published as a special issue of Applied Financial Economics. The academic editor of this journal is Mark P. Taylor.

The microeconomic foundation of the theory of money has long represented a puzzle to economic theory. Why is there Money? derives the foundations of monetary theory from advanced price theory in a mathematically precise family of trading post models. It has long been recognized that the fundamental theoretical analysis of a market economy is embodied in the Arrow-Debreu-Walras mathematical general equilibrium model, with one great deficiency: the analysis cannot accommodate money and financial institutions. In this groundbreaking book, Ross M. Starr addresses this problem directly, by expanding the Arrow-Debreu model to include a multiplicity of trading opportunities, with the resultant endogenous derivation of money as the carrier of value among them. This fundamental breakthrough is achieved while maintaining the Walrasian general equilibrium price-theoretic structure, augmented primarily by the introduction of separate bid and ask prices reflecting transaction costs. The result is foundations of monetary theory consistent with and derived from modern price theory. This fascinating book will provide a stimulating and thought-provoking read for academics and postgraduate students focusing on economics, macroeconomics, macroeconomic policy and finance, money and banking. Central bankers will also find much to interest them within this book. Contents: Introduction: Why is There No Money? 1. Why is There Money? 2. An Economy Without Money 3. The Trading Post Model 4. An Elementary Linear Example: Liquidity Creates Money 5. Absence of Double Coincidence of Wants is Essential to Monetization in a Linear Economy 6. Uniqueness of Money: Scale Economy and Network Externality 7. Monetization of General Equilibrium 8. Government-Issued Fiat Money 9. Efficient Structure of Exchange 10. Microfoundations of Jevons's Double Coincidence Condition 11. Commodity Money Equilibrium in a Convex Trading Post Economy 12. Efficiency of Commodity Money Equilibrium 13. Alternative Models 14. Conclusion and a Research Agenda Bibliography Index

First published in 1978, The Valuation of Social Cost is concerned both with the idea, and with the practical problems, of placing monetary values on 'intangible', non-marketed goods, such as pollution, noise nuisance, personal injury, or the loss of home, neighbours or recreational benefit. A diverse range of contributors critically assess both the theoretical issues and the practical attempts made by economists and others to 'monetise' items which cannot be bought or sold. Each section contains a comprehensive literature review and a detailed critical appraisal. Despite being written in the late 70s, this book discusses issues which retain significant importance today.