The recent economic crisis--with the plunge in the stock market, numerous bank failures and widespread financial distress, declining output and rising unemployment--has been reminiscent of the Great Depression. The Depression of the 1930s was marked by the spread of protectionist trade policies,...

Many writers either glorify globalization or vilify it, particularly for its destructive environmental effects. In this book environmental sociologist Arthur Mol provides a more balanced understanding of the relationship between globalization and environmental quality. Mol bases his arguments on...

"Pop internationalists" -- people who speak impressively about international trade while ignoring basic economics and misusing economic figures are the target of this collection of Paul Krugman's most recent essays. In the clear, readable, entertaining style that brought acclaim for his...

Currency boards, more so than other exchange rate regimes, have come in and out of fashion. Defined by a fixed exchange rate with full convertibility, central bank liabilities backed with foreign exchange reserves, and a high cost of exiting the regime, currency boards were common in colonial...

Recent analysis by political economists of monetary institution determinants in different countries has been limited by the fact that exchange rate regimes and central bank institutions are studied in isolation from each other, without examining how one institution affects the costs and benefits...

Most of the literature on exchange rate regimes has focused on the developed countries. Since the recent crises in emerging markets, however, attention has shifted to the choice of exchange rate regimes for developing countries, especially those that are more integrated into the world capital...

The exchange rate is sometimes called the most important price in a highly globalized world. A country's choice between government-managed fixed rates and market-determined floating rates has significant implications for monetary policy, trade, and macroeconomic outcomes, and is the subject of...

Few topics in international economics are as controversial as the choice of an exchange rate regime. Since the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system in the early 1970s, countries have adopted a wide variety of regimes, ranging from pure floats at one extreme to currency boards and dollarization...

East Asian countries were notably uninterested in regional monetary integration until the late 1990s, when the Asian financial crisis revealed the fragility of the region's exchange rate arrangements and highlighted the need for a stronger regional financial architecture. Since then, the...

From the mid-1950s to the early 1990s, Japan grew faster than any other major industrial economy, displacing the United States in dominance of worldwide manufacturing markets. In the 1970s and 1980s, many books appeared linking the apparent decline of the United States in the world economy to...