Confounding forecasts of disruption and market turbulence, the transition to monetary union in Europe took place very smoothly. Some recent developments, however, are cause for concern, and important problems must still be resolved. The governments of most euro-zone countries do not subscribe to...

The emerging-market crises of the 1990s were characterized by crashes in exchange rates, credit flows, and output, and the currency crashes caused the other two. Because local banks and firms had large foreign-currency debts, the sharp depreciations of their countries' currencies had huge...

This paper reviews theoretical work on exchange-rate crises and discusses recent attempts to reduce the risk of crises and manage them more effectively. Models usually used to explain crises—those in which they are due to bad policies and those in which they are due to self-fulfilling...

The subject of this paper is one about which I have written before, but this paper goes further than those published previously. It contemplates the gradual transformation of the global reserve regime by making the IMF’s quasi-currency, the SDR, the primary reserve asset of the international...

Exchange Rates and the Monetary System comprises a careful selection of Peter B. Kenen’s acclaimed papers on international monetary economics written over the past thirty years. The volume includes Professor Kenen’s theoretical and empirical essays on the functioning of the international...

The CMEA countries are starting to conduct their trade at world prices and in convertible currencies. These are crucial steps in economic reform but will worsen Eastern Europe's terms of trade and drive it into current account deficit with the U.S.S.R. Proposals have been made for a payments...