This article, which serves as an introduction to the <italic>Oxford Review of Economic Policy</italic>’s issue on ‘Macroeconomic Policy Coordination: Global Imbalances and Global Growth’, charts the evolution of international macroeconomic policy coordination from the end of the Second World War until the...

There is a thriving debate on the usefulness of economic models for policy analysis which this paper explores. It argues that there is a need for models that incorporate both the modern intertemporal approach to macroeconomics and short-run ad-hoc behaviour. This need cannot be met by the simple...

In this paper we discuss the emergence of the new European macroeconomic structure within EMU. We focus on three important elements: the wage-fixing authorities in each country, the fiscal authorities in each country, and the single European Central Bank (ECB). We identify serious problems which...

This article examines the new consensus that fiscal policy should have no macroeconomic role in 'flexible inflation targeting' regimes. There is little basis for this presumption. Fiscal policy remains important in setting the policy mix and in managing shocks and imbalances. The credibility of...

This paper examines the multilateral governance of trade along with the prospects for its meaningful reform, in the light of recent, crisis-era discrimination against the many types of cross-border commerce. Prior episodes of protectionism provide a useful benchmark. The findings are not...

This paper describes the emerging consensus about the "reaction function" approach to macroeconomic policy. The first section of the paper describes the historical emergence of this consensus, as a synthesis of pre-Keynesian, Keynesian, and monetarist ideas. The theoretical part of the paper...

This paper studies the interactions of fiscal policy and monetary policy when they stabilize a single economy against shocks in a dynamic setting. If both policy-makers are benevolent, then, in our model, the best outcome is achieved when monetary policy does nearly all of the stabilization. If...