Recurrent instability has characterized the global financial system since the 1980s, eventually leading to the current global financial crisis. This instability and the resultant disruptions - sovereign debt defaults, exchange rate misalignments, financial market illiquidity and asset price...

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,...

This book is an up-to-date, authoritative and comprehensive analysis of the key issues and challenges facing regional currency area projects in the context of financial globalization. The authors focus on several central issues that emerged during the experiences of the 1990s and 2000s: exchange...

This book explores the characteristics of inflations, comparing historical cases from Roman times up to the modern day. High and moderate inflations caused by the inflationary bias of political systems and economic relationships – and the importance of different monetary regimes in containing...

Beginning with an assessment of new thinking in macroeconomics and monetary theory, this book suggests that many countries have adopted the New Consensus Monetary Policy since the early 1990s in an attempt to reduce inflation to low levels. It goes on to illustrate that the explicit control of...

This ambitious book seeks both to revive and revise the idea of 'functional finance'. Followers of this doctrine believe that government budgets should concentrate solely on their macroeconomic impact on the economy, rather than reflecting a concern for sound finance and budgetary discipline....