Following the fiscal stabilisation of 1926 and the accompanying return of the French franc to the Gold Standard, France enjoyed several years of fast growth and remained immune to the effects of the Great Depression until early 1931. Accounts of this period emphasize the undervaluation of the...

This paper analyses US–European policy interactions under different assumptions about the policy-making regime and the nature of the fiscal environment, contrasting the standard Keynesian case with an anti-Keynesian case in which government spending cuts are expansionary. When fiscal policy is...

Important questions concerning the structure and operation of a European Central Bank remain unanswered. Although there exists no precedent for the process of institution-building in which the European Community is currently engaged, the founding and early operations of the Federal Reserve...

This Paper considers monetary and exchange rate policy in Korea since the financial crisis of 1997-98. The Bank of Korea has adopted much of the apparatus of inflation targeting, with a band for target inflation and a Monetary Policy Report to the National Assembly. This regime has served the...

This Paper reviews the controversy over China’s exchange rate regime. Placing the issue in the context of the literature on exit strategies, it argues that now is the best time for China to exit from its peg. Moving to a managed float would be in the country’s own interest; it would help the...

This paper analyses the costs and benefits of European monetary unification. The benefits take the form of the reduction in exchange risk, equalization of interest rates, decline in relative price variability and general increase in economic efficiency likely to accompany unification. The costs...