General introduction -- General introduction -- One: Currency Competition -- I. The theory of currency competition -- II. The history of currency competition -- III. The history of monetary thought on currency competition -- IV. The current debate: The return to gold and the liberalization of...

This book deals with the economic consequences of monetary integration, which has long been dominated by the Optimal Currency Area (OCA) paradigm. In this model, money is perceived as having developed from a private sector cost minimization process to facilitate transactions. Not surprisingly,...

Tiny changes in the American monetary policy can have dramatic effects on the rest of the world because of dollar's double role of national and international currency. This is the Triffin dilemma. The paper shows how it works through three examples: price of commodities, dollarization, and the...