The Bretton Woods system ensured a quarter of a century of relative stability on the world's financial markets. The quarter of a century which has followed has brought financial chaos and excessive financial volatility. Exchange Rate Chaos: 25 Years of Financial and Consumer Democracy describes and compares US and British financial history during this period. It highlights: * similarites in financial developments between the two countries * consumer democracy: Have the wishes of consumers dominated exchange rate policy? * The decline of the small investor and the hegemony of financial institutions * How the floating exchange rates are manipulated to government advantage One of the few financial histories to deal with the postwar period, this book shows how financial developments have shaped contemporary society and politics.

In the aftermath of the debates between Keynesians and monetarists, this book provides a lucid, concise overview of the most recent developments in monetary theory. Professor Visser has written an up-to-date survey which discusses major issues such as crowding out, the new classical macroeconomics, the breakdown of the stable money demand function, buffer stocks and currency substitution.Currency problems in general have come to the fore after the collapse of the Bretton-Woods system. The book addresses topical issues including Hayek's proposal to denationalize money as well as theoretical issues, such as the search for the microfoundations of monetary theory. This is an important, up-to-date survey of recent developments in monetary theory, and the economic reasoning which underlies it. The use of mathematics has been kept to a minimum.

The book focuses on forecasting foreign exchange rates via artificial neural networks. It creates and applies the highly useful computational techniques of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) to foreign-exchange-rate forecasting. The result is an up-to-date review of the most recent research developments in forecasting foreign exchange rates coupled with a highly useful methodological approach to predicting rate changes in foreign currency exchanges. Foreign Exchange Rate Forecasting with Artificial Neural Networks is targeted at both the academic and practitioner audiences. Managers, analysts and technical practitioners in financial institutions across the world will have considerable interest in the book, and scholars and graduate students studying financial markets and business forecast will also have considerable interest in the book. The book discusses the most important advances in foreign-exchange-rate forecasting and then systematically develops a number of new, innovative, and creatively crafted neural network models that reduce the volatility and speculative risk in the forecasting of foreign exchange rates. The book discusses and illustrates three general types of ANN models. Each of these model types reflect the following innovative and effective characteristics: (1) The first model type is a three-layer, feed-forward neural network with instantaneous learning rates and adaptive momentum factors that produce learning algorithms (both online and offline algorithms) to predict foreign exchange rates. (2) The second model type is the three innovative hybrid learning algorithms that have been created by combining ANNs with exponential smoothing, generalized linearauto-regression, and genetic algorithms. Each of these three hybrid algorithms has been crafted to forecast various aspects synergetic performance. (3) The third model type is the three innovative ensemble learning algorithms that combining multiple neural networks into an ensemble output. Empirical results reveal that these creative models can produce better performance with high accuracy or high efficiency.

The Group of Seven Industrialized Countries, G7 developed a new doctrine of international supervision and regulation of financial markets. The G7 instructed international financial institution such as the IMF, Bank for International Settlements, the World Bank and the Multilateral Development Bank to tighten their supervision and regulation of international finance. This volume examines this doctrine sometimes known as 'New Architecture of the International Financial Systems' or IFA. Strengthening of the international financial system never ends and there have been recurring vulnerabilities in international financial architecture. The book examines current practices and its consequences and how the IFA has evolved and its alternatives. The book draws upon academic knowledge, practitioner techniques in financial risk management and official doctrine to analyze how investors, creditors and debts function within the new architecture.

This book explores the causes and effects of the rise of neoliberalism in Eastern Europe in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. It provides a political economy analysis of the role of central banks, and identifies them as a key actor in the production and dissemination of the neoliberal economic policies.

The text is the first of its kind on financial engineering and risk management in Islamic finance. It sets out detailed guidelines for financial engineering from an Islamic perspective. The text also presents some practical issues concerning futures contracts and how these can be handled from an Islamic perspective. It brings out the different points of view in this respect and reflects the current state of knowledge as well as the challenges that lie ahead for financial engineers. The text explores the prospects of some Islamic contracts having similarity with commodity futures; forward contracts, especially in agriculture; and Islamic permissible contractual arrangements for resource mobilization by the public sector. It also makes an analytical comparison between debt and equity contracts with regard to incentive compatibility and efficiency.

How successful is PPP, and its extension in the monetary model, as a measure of the equilibrium exchange rate? What are the determinants and dynamics of equilibrium real exchange rates? How can misalignments be measured, and what are their causes? What are the effects of specific policies upon the equilibrium exchange rate? The answers to these questions are important to academic theorists, policymakers, international bankers and investment fund managers. This volume encompasses all of the competing views of equilibrium exchange rate determination, from PPP, through other reduced form models, to the macroeconomic balance approach. This volume is essentially empirical: what do we know about exchange rates? The different econometric and theoretical approaches taken by the various authors in this volume lead to mutually consistent conclusions. This consistency gives us confidence that significant progress has been made in understanding what are the fundamental determinants of exchange rates and what are the forces operating to bring them back in line with the fundamentals.

The Maastricht Treaty, signed in December 1991, set a timetable for the European Community's economic and monetary union (EMU) and clearly defined the institutional policy changes necessary for its achievement. Subsequent developments have demonstrated, however, the importance of many key issues in the transition to EMU that were largely neglected at the time. This volume reports the proceedings of a joint CEPR conference with the Banco de Portugal, held in January 1992. In these papers, leading international experts address the instability of the transition to EMU, the long-run implications of monetary union and the single market for growth and convergence in Europe. They also consider the prospects for inflation and fiscal convergence, regional policy and the integration of financial markets and fiscal systems. Attention focuses on adjustment mechanisms with differentiated shocks, region-specific business cycles and excessive industrial concentration and the cases for a two-speed EMU and fiscal federalism.

Under the rule of the current economic order, social injustice is ever-increasing. Issues such as poverty, inhumane working conditions, inadequate wages, social insecurity and an unhealthy labor market continue to persist. Many states are also unable to produce policies capable of resolving these problems. The characteristics of the capitalist system currently render it unable to provide social justice. In fact, on the contrary, the system reinforces these injustices and prevents economic and social welfare from reaching the masses. Many Muslim scholars have analyzed and, indeed, criticized this system for years. This book argues that an alternative and more equitable theoretical and practical economical order can been developed within the framework of Islamic principles. On the other hand, the experiences of societies under the rule of Muslim governments do not always seem to hold great promise for an alternative understanding of social justice. In addition, the behaviors of Muslim individuals within their economic lives are mostly shaped by the necessities of daily economic conditions rather than by the tenets of Islam that stand with social justice. Until 1990s, studies of Islamic economics made connections between finance and the notion of social justice, but work conducted more recently has neglected this issue. It is therefore evident that the topic of social justice needs to be revisited in a more in-depth manner. Filling an important gap in existing literature, the book uniquely connects social justice and Islamic finance and economics on this topic. Theory, practice and key issues are presented simultaneously throughout this book, which is based on the writings of a number of eminent scholars.

Banking in Transition Economies is a modern analysis of banking in the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe and includes a detailed examination of banking in the first five years of transition as well as policy recommendations for banking reform in the region. This authoritative book presents an extensive investigation of changes in the structure of the banking industry and the progress of privatization, particularly in Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic. Privatization and the restructuring of 'problem banks' are analysed as well as the strategy for re-capitalization and bank failure, and the role of foreign banks in bringing reform to the region. The book offers policy prescriptions for the transition from a passive banking structure to an active financial sector supporting the development of the industrial sector, and for the role of the state after privatization. This book will be of great importance to bankers in Central and Eastern Europe and economists interested in the process of transition, as well as financial and monetary economists.

In this book, Justin Pack proposes a genealogy of the traditional suspicion of money and merchants. This genealogy is framed both by how money itself has changed and how different traditions responded to money. Money and merchants became heavily debated concerns in the Axial Age, which coincided with the spread of coinage. A deep suspicion of money and merchants was particularly notable in the Greek, Confucian and Christian traditions, and continued into the Middle Ages. These traditions wrestled with a new dialectic of purity that also appears with the widespread use of money. How were these concerns dealt with politically, socially and philosophically? How did they change over time? How did medieval Europe deal with money and how did this inform modern governmentality? To answer these questions, Pack turns to Hanna Arendt's work. Arendt argues that one of the outstanding characteristics of our time is thoughtlessness. This thoughtlessness is related to how modern life, especially under neoliberalism, is increasingly structured by abstract systems, abstract calculative rationality, abstract relations, and the profit motive. Money both drives and embodies this machinery. The hyper-complex abstract systems of modernity discourage, to use Arendtian terms, "thinking" (wonder, questioning everything) in favor of "cognition" (problem solving). Too often the result is thoughtless cognition-the ability to make things more productive and efficient paired with the incapacity to question and challenge the implications and morality of these systems.

These conference proceedings bring together 12 new essays on a variety of key issues in the field of domestic and international monetary economics. They cover aspects of monetary theory as well as monetary policy, the prime objective being the development of intellectual tools in order to find new ways of thinking to existing and new monetary problems in an increasingly unstable world economy marked by rapid and often unexpected changes, partly caused by the disappearance of boundaries for financial transactions.;The papers cover a wide range of topics aimed at meeting some of the challenges likely to arise during the late-20th century and beyond. By challenging the orthodox paradigms in monetary economics and generating controversy, the volume should be a reference point for economists, central and commercial bankers, businessmen and politicians. Other titles by Stephen F. Frowen include "Controlling Industrial Economies", "Monetary Policy and Financial Innovations in Five Industrial Countries" and "Unknowledge and Choice in Economics".

Cryptocurrencies have had a profound effect on financial markets worldwide. This edited book aims to explore the economic implications of the use of cryptocurrencies. Drawing from chapter contributors from around the world, the book will be a valuable resource on the economics of cryptocurrencies. The intended audience is composed of academics, corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, government leaders, consultants and policy makers worldwide. Over the past few years, the topic of cryptocurrencies has gained global attention and has been the subject of discussion in various news media, in policy-making bodies and government entities, and in financial institutions, classrooms and boardrooms. Despite widespread interest, much remains unknown on what the economic implications of cryptocurrencies are. This book enhances the reader's understanding of cryptocurrencies, its impact on industry and its implications on the political and economic environment. Drawing from chapter contributions from leading academics and thought leaders from around the world, this book is the definitive guide on the economics of cryptocurrencies. There is scarcity of well conceived, academically grounded literature on the impact of cryptocurrencies on industry, politics and economics. This pioneering book provides up-to-date and in-depth analysis on the subject. The book will be appealing to academic communities, business professionals and entrepreneurs in their quest for better understanding the challenges and opportunities brought about by cryptocurrencies. Consultants, government officials and policy makers will find the information helpful in defining strategic pathways into the future.

In response to the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Federal Reserve and central banks worldwide have deployed tools that past policymakers and economists might have considered radical. Programmes like large-scale securities purchases and a new policy framework remain a source of confusion for investors, journalists and ordinary citizens alike. Twenty-First Century Monetary Policy demystifies these opaque techniques to reveal how economic ideas, historical events and political forces have transformed the Fed’s policies over several decades. From the stagflation of the 1970s to the Great Recession and the recent pandemic, Ben S. Bernanke masterfully examines how the Fed’s policies—and the institution itself—may change as it grapples with persistently low interest rates, systemic financial risk, rapid technological change and polarised politics. With unparalleled depth of expertise and robust historical sweep, Twenty-First Century Monetary Policy is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding modern finance, investments or U.S. economic policy.

The Future of the Euro is an attempt by political economists to analyze the fundamental causes of the euro crisis, determine how it can be fixed, and consider what likely futures lie ahead for the currency. The book makes three interrelated arguments that emphasize the primacy of political over economic factors. First, the 'euro problem' is discussed as the result of the single currency's fundamental lack of institutional embeddedness, insofar as its original design omitted three 'forgotten unions' alongside of monetary union: a financial and banking union, mutually supporting institutions of fiscal union and economic government, and a political union holding similar legitimacy to the nation-state. Second, the 'euro experience' shows how the euro's unfinished design led to economic divergence - quietly altering the existing distribution of economic and political power within Europe prior to the crisis - which in turn determined the EU's crisis response. The book highlights how the euro's four most important members - Germany, France, Italy and Spain - each changed once they adopted the euro, why the crisis affected them so differently, and how each has since struggled to live with the commitments the euro necessitates. Third, the book examines three possible 'euro futures' through the lens of the politics of its reluctant leader Germany; through the lens of the EU's capacity to 'move forward' through crises; and through the geopolitical lens of the international monetary system. The book concludes that any successful long-term solution to the euro's predicament needs to start with the political foundations of markets.

This edited volume explores theoretical and empirical issues related to monetary economics and policy in the Islamic financial system. Derived from the Conference on Islamic Monetary Economics and Institutions: Theory and Practice 2017 held in Male, Maldives, the enclosed papers highlights several option for authorities and regulatory bodies regarding monetary policy and regulation, as well as discussing how Islamic monetary policy effects growth, financial stability and resilience to shocks in practice. The inter-linkage between Islamic monetary policy and other markets are also explored. The subject of Islamic economics has gained considerable attention in the last four decades with the emergence of Islamic financial institutions around the world. This phenomenon has motivated economists to develop a comprehensive theoretical framework of modern monetary economics for Islamic economic system. An important characteristic of the Islamic economic system is the abolition of interest from the financial system. Islamic monetary economics is distinguished from conventional monetary economics due to the absence of interest. Therefore, under the Islamic economic system, monetary policy has to depend on other tools. In the early theoretical literature on Islamic monetary economics, many have discussed the role of money in Islamic economics system, while the number of empirical studies on Islamic monetary economics is a relatively new phenomenon. According to Islamic scholars, there are three main goals of Islamic monetary policy: a) economic well-being with full employment and optimum rate of economic growth; b) socioeconomic justice and equitable distribution of income and wealth and c) stability in the value of money. Hence, the Islamic monetary policy has several socioeconomic and ethical implications. Featuring regional case studies, this book serves as a valuable resource for academics, scholars, practitioners and policy makers in the areas of Islamic economics and finance.

This volume contains an Open Access Chapter The Sustainability of Health Care Systems in Europe provides a comprehensive understanding of the sustainability of health systems in Europe. Furthermore, it includes an introduction to how EU action in supporting health- care policies in the EU Member States, looking both at implemented actions and describing current priorities for the future. There has been a rapid evolution of the structure of society and the economy over the last few decades which has created new demands for healthcare services. This has placed pressure on policy makers to ensure the sustainability of the health care sector. Policy makers understand the efficiency of the healthcare delivery system needs to be improved, the shortage of health professionals must be tackled, and that there are growing health inequalities and inequity in access to healthcare. These challenges are exacerbated by recent economic shocks including the 2008 recession, the uncertainty related to Brexit, and the crisis induced by the COVID-19 pandemic, which have impacted the ability of European health systems to finance the health care sector. This book is a must read for researchers and students of health economics and health policy.

This book provides a thorough knowledge of the nature of the convergence criteria which states must meet in order to qualify for accession to the future Economic and Monetary Union of Europe and comprehensive coverage of both the economic and political rationale of the criteria within the framework of an international political economy approach. Thus, throughout the course of the analysis, three questions in particular are addressed: first, what is the relationship between the economics and politics of the convergence criteria; second, how do domestic and international factors impact upon their future realisation; and third what, overall, is the role of the state. This book gives valuable insights into the Economic and Monetary Union debate.

It's now 50 years since gold convertibility of the US dollar ended in 1971, and was succeeded by the unsustainable "non-system" of 100% paper currencies and floating exchange-rates, which is now nearing its end. The monetary instability experienced in recent years imposes enormous costs worldwide, and has led to calls for a "A New Bretton Woods" or other "reset" of the international monetary system. In order to avoid the same problem arising again at a later date, the value of money must once again be defined in terms of some real commodity or commodities, as it has been for most of history. However, making currencies convertible into gold once again would be no panacea. A better alternative, first proposed in the 19th century, and advocated in the 20th century by both Keynes and Hayek (despite being leaders of opposing schools of economics) is for money to be made convertible into a range of commodities other than gold. A simple, practical means of implementing this idea was promoted in the 1950s by the Australian economist Leo StClare Grondona, to much acclaim in Britain. Despite the growing potential of new forms of money using Blockchain technology, no alternative to real convertibility has been proposed as a reliable means to ensure their value, and so this book argues that the Grondona System's time has now come. The world cannot afford another round of unsustainable and unstable "fiat" currencies that will fail yet again, spreading poverty and injustice worldwide once more. A sustainable basis for sovereign national money systems, which the world urgently needs, can be simply achieved by implementing this "Grondona System" - the only practical and dependable way to realize the policy advocated by both Keynes and Hayek, whereby the value of currency is stabilized by making it conditionally convertible into a range of primary commodities. Once one country implements the Grondona system, market forces will be harnessed to stabilise the value of the national currency, creating a system which provides an objective measure of its real value. The impact on both economic policy and on the economics profession of a growing range of countries adopting the system will be profound. It will also help many poor developing countries, which export primary commodities and suffer greatly from both the instability of commodity market prices and fluctuations in world trade.

A volume in Research on Hispanic and Latino Business Series Editors Michael William Mulnix and Esther Elena Lopez-Mulnix More than one in every five Latin Americans lives on less than $2 a day, and Latin America is the most unequal region in the world. The book tackles the problem of poverty and inequality in Latin America through the novel approach of using the decentralization of government functions to satisfy the basic needs of the poor. Decentralization can bring government closer to the people and strengthen the voice of the voiceless. Satisfying basic needs for services such as education and health care enhances productivity and imparts an indispensable opportunity to earn an income sufficient to emerge from poverty and to live a full life. Part 1 describes the poverty and inequality of Latin America and the Basic Needs Approach to Development. Part 2 introduces a model of decentralization as a step-by-step process, and it shows the policymaker how to implement decentralization in stages through matching its various degrees with real-world circumstances. Part 3 enriches the understanding of policymakers by analyzing real-world cases of decentralization in light of the decentralization model. The second edition includes two new chapters that cover the important but often neglected topic of taxation for inclusive development. Chapter 8 analyzes the influential tax advice of the World Bank in terms of its effect on decentralization and the satisfaction of basic needs. Appendix B of Chapter 8 presents an empirical analysis in support of the chapter's argument that the Bank's policy is in need of revision. Chapter 9 analyzes the effects of the World Bank's tax advice on El Salvador's tax reform and development process. Two other chapters have been extensively updated: Chapter 6 records and analyzes the rapid evolution of Mexico's Oportunidades program for health, education and nutrition, and Chapter 10 evaluates the progress of the United States' innovative program for foreign aid, The Millennium Challenge Account. Throughout the book, tables and references have been updated.

This volume presents a radical reinterpretation of the European Community or Union as a neo-liberal construction. It was neo-liberal rather than classically liberal because it was designed and used as an external instrument to weaken the interventionist welfare state that protected working people and strengthened the hand of labor. It was founded on the vision of a free market untrammelled by public intervention and worked to ensure competition, sound money and profitability against the inflationary force of workers and unions and the welfare state. Monetary union in particular restored profitability but produced slow growth, mass unemployment, and insecurity and came under challenge, most dramatically in France, by working people from below. This view is substantiated by an economically based study of member-state performance and complemented by a series of national studies on the monetarist turn by leading scholars.

Patrick Artus and Yves Barroux The Applied Econometric Association organised an international conference on "Monetary and Financial Models" in Geneva in January 1987. The purpose of this book is to make available to the public a choice of the papers that were presented at the conference. The selected papers all deal with the setting of monetary targets and the effects of monetary policy on the economy as well as with the analysis of the financial behaviours of economic agents. Other papers presented at the same conference but dealing with the external aspects of monetary policy (exchange rate policy, international coordination of economic policies, international transmission of business cycles, . . . ) are the matter of a distinct publication. The papers put together to make up this book either are theoretical research contributions or consist of applied statistical or econometric work. It seemed to be more logical to start with the more theoretical papers. The topics tackled in the first two parts of the book have in common the fact that they appeared just recently in the field of economic research and deal with the analysis of the behaviour of Central Banks. They analyse this behaviour so as to be able to exhibit its major determinants as well as revealed preferences of Central Banks: this topic comes under the caption "optimal monetary policy and reaction function of the monetary authorities."

The creation of the European Central Bank and the Euro have brought new challenges to EU integration and economic policy. This book looks into issues of monetary and factor market policies. The analysis also presents new theoretical and empirical research on the - transitory - decline of the Euro. Issues of exchange rate policy and international economic relations also are addressed.

A collection of papers from an eminent economist, Wynne Godley, focusing on the stock-flow coherent method, which formed the core of his contribution to the discipline. Chapters trace the development of Professor Godley's theoretical work, and include prescient discussions of the European Union and its monetary policy.