Since the beginning of the transition process from centrally planed to market economies, East European countries have experienced relatively high inflation and a market depreciation of their currency. Their monetary systems have gone through dramatic changes in the recent ten years, making the...

This paper considers the extent to which the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) meets the criteria for a common currency area. NAFTA is compared with the EC, a regional grouping for which initial plans for a monetary union are already in place. Most of the anticipated benefits from a...

In contrast to the popular bipolar view on exchange rate choices, this paper argues that intermediate regimes in general and regional exchange rate systems such as the European Monetary System (EMS) in particular should not be ruled out per se when discussing monetary options for East Asian...

To the extent that they exert a critical influence on the macroeconomic environment, monetary and exchange rate policies (MERP) are relevant for development. However, the analytical economic literature often sees nominal variables as being irrelevant for the real economy, while the multiplicity...

This paper examines the exchange rate regimes of East Asian countries since the initial shift by China to a controlled appreciation in July 2005, testing econometrically the weights of key currencies in the implicit baskets that appear to be targeted by East Asian monetary authorities. It finds,...

Recent research has found that current account balances under flexible regimes seem to be no less persistent than under fixed regimes. This result appears to undermine Milton Friedman's well known — and commonly accepted — claim that flexible exchange rates facilitate the adjustment of...

With the rise of the People's Republic of China (PRC) as the world's largest trading nation (measured by trade value) and second largest economic power (measured by GDP), its economic influence over the neighboring emerging economies in East Asia has also risen. The PRC introduced some exchange...