Suchergebnisse

Robert Triffin (1960) was the first to formalize that , under the gold exchange standard , the key currency issuing country faced a dilemma. Either the United States would stop providing more dollar balances for international finance , leading to trade stagnation and deflationary bias in the global economy ; either the United States would continue to provide more of the international reserve currency , leading ultimately to a loss of confidence in the dollar. This paper shows that the formulation of this dilemma is the consequence of Triffin ' s early critics of the Bretton Woods system in the 1940s leading him to advocate a reform of the international monetary system at the regional level , ie. the European one , in the 1950s .

Robert Triffin (1960) was the first to formalize that , under the gold exchange standard , the key currency issuing country faced a dilemma. Either the United States would stop providing more dollar balances for international finance , leading to trade stagnation and deflationary bias in the global economy ; either the United States would continue to provide more of the international reserve currency , leading ultimately to a loss of confidence in the dollar. This paper shows that the formulation of this dilemma is the consequence of Triffin ' s early critics of the Bretton Woods system in the 1940s leading him to advocate a reform of the international monetary system at the regional level , ie. the European one , in the 1950s .

The main objective of this article is to reexamine the role of the Phillips curve for monetary policy analysis in South Africa by augmenting the model for major structural changes in the balance‐of‐payments and labor market. The main findings show that a linear Phillips curve with an output gap in levels accurately describes South Africa's nontrended inflation experience during 1971(Q1)–1984(Q4), whereas a piecewise concave curve with an output gap in growth rates correctly predicts the decelerating inflation pattern during 1986(Q1)–2001(Q2). The concave curve after 1985 imparts a deflationary bias that requires expansionary demand‐side policies to stabilise the inflation rate. An important corollary is that expansionary demand‐side policies can raise the average growth rate of the output gap over time without sacrificing stabilization objectives. (JELC22, E3, E52)

Die Eurokrise hat ihren Ursprung nicht nur in einer Staatsschuldenkrise. Sie wurde ebenfalls durch eine Zahlungsbilanzkrise verursacht. Ein breit gefächerter Ansatz in der Wirtschaftspolitik ist daher erforderlich, um die Eurozone auf einen nachhaltig stabilen und dynamischen Wachstumspfad zurückzubringen. ; A multi-faceted approach is required for the euro area to restore sustainable growth and prevent a vicious circle of public- and private-sector deleveraging leading to weaker economic activity which in turn results in a further deterioration in banks' asset quality. While avoiding discretionary fiscal expansion, creditor countries should work together with debtor countries to accelerate micro-economic reforms in product, services and labor markets to achieve greater macro-economic convergence in the euro area. This, with together the restoration of the health and resilience of the banking sector, is the key to the area's viability. The ECB's policy to avoid any deflationary bias while stabilizing inflation at or around 2 per cent for the euro-area as a whole should be another component of such an approach.

This paper provides a baseline general-equilibrium model of optimal monetary policy among interdependent economies with monopolistic firms that set prices one period in advance. Strict adherence to inward-looking policy objectives such as the stabilization of domestic output cannot be optimal when firms' markups are exposed to currency fluctuations. Such policies induce excessive volatility in exchange rates and foreign sales revenue, leading exporters to set higher prices in response to higher profit risk. In general, optimal rules trade off a larger domestic output gap against lower import prices. Monetary rules in a world Nash equilibrium lead to less exchange rate volatility relative to both inward-looking rules and discretionary policies, even when the latter do not suffer from any inflationary (or deflationary) bias. Gains from international monetary cooperation are related in an nonmonotonic way to the degree of exchange rate pass-through.

The current crisis is like an earthquake for the theoretical foundations of economic policies, which have guided governments and central banks for the last few decades. The efficient market hypothesis and its application to labor markets -'natural rate theory'- dominated interpretations of economic trends and policy prescriptions since the 1970s. Public policy, public institutions, and regulations were generally regarded as distortions of the otherwise well functioning markets. Economic trends were filtered through the lens of the 'natural rate theory,' focusing on labor market institutions only and putting blinds on macroeconomic influences. Therefore, the recipe was a reshaping of institutional arrangements intended to allow markets to operate more freely, i.e. to bring the real world closer to the idealized theoretical model. This paper confronts the economic trends with the interpretations of the 'natural rate theory' and argues that they hardly fitting the facts. The paper argues that monetary policy gained importance in the 1970s and enforced deflationary policies - which, in turn reduced growth, especially in upswings - and allowed employment to recover to its initial pre-recession levels. Deflationary bias was also guiding the design of major EU institutions, reducing potential and actual growth.

The euro was adopted as legal tender, albeit in a virtual form, by eleven countries of the European Union on January 1, 1999, with the intention that notes and coins denominated in euros would be introduced and the national currencies would be phased out during the first six months of that year and that the euro would be fully operational by 2002. This paper first reviews the current position of the EMU member states in relation to the convergence criteria under the Maastricht Treaty and finds that there must have been a considerable degree of "fudge" for the criteria to have been met. The paper next looks at the central role of aggregate demand in the EMU and at concerns about unemployment. It then examines the prospects of the current EMU arrangements, concluding that they are highly deflationary. To overcome the deflationary bias of current proposals and as a means to alleviate the serious unemployment problem, the authors recommend that the European Central Bank be enhanced by (1) the development of a new institution, the European Union Development Bank, and (2) a modification of the Stability and Growth Pact.

Cover -- Contents -- Introduction -- Chapter 1 - Policy Response to the Global Financial Crisis: Key issues for Developing Countries -- A. Introduction -- B. Policy Response in DEEs: Payments Constraint and International Support -- C. Reform of the International Financial Architecture -- D. Summary of Policy Conclusions and Proposals -- Chapter 2 - Global Economic Prospects: The Recession May Be Over but Where Next? -- A. Issues at Stake -- B. Bubbles, Expansion and Imbalances -- C. Crisis, Recession and Recovery -- D. No Return to "Business as Usual" - Need for US Adjustment -- E. China Too Needs to Adjust, But It Cannot be a Global Locomotive -- F. Bringing in the Bystanders: Germany and Japan -- G. Exchange Rate Adjustments -- H. Removing the Deflationary Bias in the International Financial Architecture -- I. Conclusions -- Chapter 3 - Export Dependence, Sustainability of Growth and Adjustment in China -- A. Introduction -- B. Measurement of Contribution of Exports to Economic Growth -- C. Import Content of Exports -- D. To What Extent is Growth in China Export-Led? -- Chapter 4 - The Subprime Boom-Bust Cycle and Capital Flows to Developing Countries -- A. Introduction -- B. Previous Post-War Boom-Bust Cycles -- C. Capital Flows in the 2000s -- D. The Changing Nature of Capital Flows -- E. Changing Vulnerabilities to Boom-Bust Cycles -- F. The Impact of Recent Capital Flows on DEEs -- G. What is Next? -- H. Managing Capital Inflows -- I. Conclusions -- Chapter 5 - Why the IMF and the International Monetary System Need More than Cosmetic Reform -- A. Introduction -- B. The IMF's Failures in Financial Analysis and Early Warning -- C. IMF Surveillance and Members' Obligations -- D. The International Reserves System -- E. Crisis Intervention and Lending -- F. Conclusions -- References.

The initial introduction of the euro has, against many expectations, been accompanied by a decline in the value of the euro (notably vis-à-vis the dollar and sterling). It has also been introduced at a time of high levels of unemployment within most of the European Union (EU). This paper explores how the economies of the EU may suffer from the introduction of the euro, specifically from the policy and institutional arrangements within which the euro is embedded. It is the argument of this paper that the eurozone will face considerable economic difficulties. These difficulties will take a number of forms, but we focus on two rather different aspects which could qualify for the term crisis. First, the euro has been launched with high levels of unemployment (of the order of 10 percent of the work force) and with particularly severe disparities in unemployment experience and in standards of living. At the end of 1998, the rate of unemployment was over 20 percent in Spain, and in double figures in Finland, France, Germany, Ireland and Italy. It is argued here that these high levels of unemployment are likely to continue in the foreseeable future, and that the policy arrangements which surround the operation of the euro, notably the objectives of the European Central Bank (ECB) and the workings of the Stability and Growth Pact, will have a deflationary bias. These levels of and disparities in unemployment could be termed a crisis. Second, the introduction of the euro and the associated institutional setting could well serve to exacerbate tendencies towards financial crisis including the volatility and subsequent collapse of asset prices and runs on the banking system. There may be some additional forces of instability arising from the relationship between the dollar and the euro as two major global currencies and the current trade imbalances. Further, the operating arrangements of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) can be seen as inadequate to cope with such financial crises.

While the popularity of using the item count technique (ICT) or list experiment to obtain estimates of attitudes and behaviors subject to social desirability bias has increased in recent years among political scientists, many of the empirical properties of the technique remain untested. In this paper, we explore whether estimates are biased due to the different list lengths provided to control and treatment groups rather than due to the substance of the treatment items. By using face-to-face survey data from national probability samples of households in Uruguay and Honduras, we assess how effective the ICT is in the context of face-to-face surveys-where social desirability bias should be strongest-and in developing contexts-where literacy rates raise questions about the capability of respondents to engage in cognitively taxing process required by ICT. We find little evidence that the ICT overestimates the incidence of behaviors and instead find that the ICT provides extremely conservative estimates of high incidence behaviors. Thus, the ICT may be more useful for detecting low prevalence attitudes and behaviors and may overstate social desirability bias when the technique is used for higher frequency socially desirable attitudes and behaviors. However, we do not find strong evidence of variance in deflationary effects across common demographic subgroups, suggesting that multivariate estimates using the ICT may not be biased. Adapted from the source document.

The international monetary system and the European Monetary Union Jean-Paul Fitoussi et Marc Flandreau The 50th anniversary of the creation of the Bretton Woods system offers the opportunity to confront the recent evolutions of the European Monetary System to previous experiments. In the past, three main types of monetary arrangements have prevailed. One type is what we call « decentralized and unconstrained systems », where the sovereignty of each country over its monetary policy is complete (e.g. floating exchange rates arrangements). Another type is what we call « fully centralized systems », where monetary power is transferred to some central authority (e.g. Federal Reserve System). Finally, a hybrid case is represented by what we call « decentralized yet constrained systems » (e.g. the Bretton Woods system, or the EMS) where nations are (i) sovereign over their domestic policies, but (ii) constrained by a set of common rules (for instance, they have to take into account the policies of other nations). This paper is an attempt to provide a cost-benefit analysis of these various options. Two main conclusions emerge. First, the apparent autonomy obtained under the « decentralized and unconstrained system » is probably merely an illusion because the inherent difficulties associated with a general float of the various currencies wipe out most of the advantages associated with effective sovereignty. Second, we argue that decentralized yet unconstrained regimes (such as EMS) usually induce a deflationary bias which renders these arrangements both costly and unsustainable. This finally suggests that the fundamental dilemma of international arrangements is that there may not be any stable regime without the construction of a supra-national institution. ; La célébration du cinquantième anniversaire de la création du système de Bretton Woods invite à replacer les évolutions récentes du Système Monétaire Européen dans une perspective historique. Dans le passé, les arrangements monétaires internationaux ont été de trois types. A un pôle, on trouve les systèmes qu'on propose d'appeler « décentralisés sans contrainte », où la souveraineté des politiques monétaires est totale (systèmes de changes flottants). A l'autre pôle, on trouve les systèmes complètement centralisés, où chaque participant a transféré son pouvoir monétaire à une organisation centrale qui définit la politique de l'union (Federal Reserve System aux Etats-Unis). Entre les deux enfin, on trouve les systèmes « décentralisés avec contrainte » (comme par exemple le SME, ou Bretton Woods), où les politiques domestiques sont définies individuellement mais doivent prendre en compte les politiques des autres membres. Cet article se propose de faire le point sur ces options en soulignant leurs avantages et leurs inconvénients respectifs. Deux conclusions principales se dégagent. D'abord, l'autonomie que confère un système de changes flottants est probablement illusoire, car le flottement neutralise une grande partie des avantages de la souveraineté monétaire. La deuxième conclusion est que les systèmes décentralisés avec contrainte, du type SME, contiennent un biais déflationniste qui les rend coûteux et difficilement soutenables. Au confluent de ces deux problèmes se trouve le dilemme fondamental des systèmes internationaux pour lesquels il n'est pas d'équilibre stable sans construction d'une certaine forme de supranationalité.

AbstractIn recent years, postgenomic research, and the fields of epigenetics and microbiome science in particular, have described novel ways in which social processes of racialization can become embodied and result in physiological and health-related racial difference. This new conception of biosocial race has important implications for philosophical debates on the ontology of race. We argue that postgenomic research on race exhibits two key biases in the way that racial schemas are deployed. Firstly, although the 'new biosocial race' has been characterized as social race entering into biological processes, it is only particular aspects of social race that are taken to cross the biosocial boundary, resulting in a distorted view of the social component of biosocial race. Secondly, racial categories are assumed to be stable across time and space. This assumption is epistemically limiting, as well as indicating a reliance on a fixed racial ontology. However, the causal pathways for the embodiment of social race, and the different possible modes of embodiment, that postgenomic science is uncovering themselves present a challenge for fixed or static racial ontologies. Given these tensions, we argue that the emerging picture of a shifting landscape of entanglement between the social and the biological requires us to increase the complexity of our ontologies of race, or even embrace a deflationary metaphysics of race.