The rise of regional monetary arrangements poses a challenge for the International Monetary Fund (IMF)'s global surveillance efforts. This paper reviews how the IMF has responded to earlier regional initiatives, from the European Payments Union of the 1950s and the Gold Pool of the 1960s to the...

We build a simplified externality model extended into global monetary field and get the conditions from the worst, basic to best disciplines about the issuances of national and international currencies. Then, we assess and design several international monetary systems. We find for the national...

The main strength of today's international monetary system – its flexibility and adaptability to the different needs of its users – can also become its weakness, as it may contribute to unsustainable growth models and imbalances. The global financial crisis has shown that the system cannot...

A sketch of the International Monetary Fund's 70-year history reveals an institution that has reinvented itself over time along multiple dimensions. This history is primarily consistent with a “demand driven” theory of institutional change, as the needs of its clients and the type of crisis...

This article investigates some of the causes of the financial crisis - global imbalances and unsound governance of world liquidity - and supports the need to reform the present asymmetric international monetary system based on the dollar as a reserve currency. Part I examines global imbalances,...

We propose a simple model of the international monetary system. We study the world supply and demand for reserve assets denominated in different currencies under a variety of scenarios: a Hegemon vs. a multipolar world; abundant vs. scarce reserve assets; a gold exchange standard vs. a floating...

Since the global financial crisis, the Global Financial Safety Net (GFSN), traditionally consisting mainly of countries' own foreign exchange reserves with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) acting as a backstop, has expanded significantly with the continued accumulation of reserves, the...

This special issue of PSL Quarterly Review discusses the economic consequences of the Russian-Ukranian one year and a half after its outbreak. Firstly, Joseph Halevi re-assesses the conclusions drawn in the special issue published by Moneta e Credito in June 2022. Secondly, Araujo et al. point...

Why did monetary authorities hold large gold reserves under Bretton Woods (1944-1971) when only the US had to? We argue that gold holdings were driven by institutional memory and persistent habits of central bankers. Countries continued to back currency in circulation with gold reserves,...

In emerging markets, policies for preventing and managing financial crises should be understood following the standard open economy macroeconomics text treatment. This, however, will prevent us from fully comprehending how to deal with these crises. To deal with financial crises in emerging...