Economic Policy, Exchange Rates, and the International System

An ambitious successor to W. Max Corden's highly acclaimed Inflation, Exchange Rates, and the World Economy, this book addresses topics ininternational macroeconomics that have come to the forefront of economicpolicy debates in recent years. Covering exchange rate policy, theEuropean Monetary System, protection and competition, and theinternational "non-system" since the collapse of Bretton Woods, Cordenprovides a probing analysis of significant economic trends associatedwith the increasing integration of the world capital market.Beginning with essays on exchange rate policy, the current account, andexternal effects of fiscal policy, Corden lays out the foundations ofbalance-of-payments theory in relation to wage rates, incomedistribution, and inflation. Chapters on the European Monetary Systemfocus on monetary integration and look skeptically at European proposalsto move toward monetary union. Other topical essays discuss the"competitiveness" problem and the relation between protection andmacroeconomic policy.Corden summarizes and clarifies a vast range of work on the coordinationof macroeconomic policies and critically reviews various proposals forreforming the international monetary system.