Especially with the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998, Asian countries have advocated a profound reform of the international financial architecture. Their proposals focused on two main axes: a reform of the global financial system and stronger regional monetary integration in Asia. There are...

Robert Triffin (1911-1993) played an important role in the international monetary debates in the postwar period. He was known as one of the main advocates of a multipolar international monetary system. In this paper we analyse the origins of Triffin's "regional" approach towards international...

The most notable idea of Charles P. Kindleberger’s later career is the value of a single country acting as stabilizer of an international economy prone to instability. It runs through his widely read books, "The World in Depression, 1929-1939" (1973), "Manias, Crises, and Panics" (1978), "A...

1. CRUSHED FLOWER Form my personal associations, I found that Shrimathi Indira Gandhi had a special affinity to the Rose, particularly the dark-pink variety. This, probably she inherited from her father, late Shri. Jawaharlal Nehru, the Freedom Fighter, one of the founders of the Indian National...

In a recent edition of Economic Affairs, Edwin van de Haar provides evidence against the thesis that trade fosters peace. However, I argue his description of the “trade-fosters-peace” thesis as insufficiently precise is incorrect. By its nature, we must use probabilistic language....

The article is part of the special issue of the journal on Charles P. Kindleberger (CPK). By reviewing CPK's works the authors investigates the contributions by Kindleberger not mainly as a historian but as an economist. Kindleberger's theory of financial crises is reconstructed, drawing from...

This paper addresses the enduring insistence on the moral dimension of international economic relations in Keynes's economics and diplomacy. The issue has so far raised scarce attention in the literature, which tend to attribute some outstanding failures of Keynes's economic diplomacy to the...

The paper revisits some foreseeable disasters of the recent history of the global economy, from the consequences of the failed attempt to construct a disciplinary order based on the Washington Consensus paradigm, to the current global crisis, which dramatically showed the vulnerability of the...

In the paper, we revisit the focus and method of 'Indian Currency and Finance' (1913) and the rationale of Keynes's proposal for an international monetary system combining cheapness with stability. In particular, we centre on the management of exchange reserves and the pattern of relationships...

Robert Triffin became famous with his trenchant analyses of the vulnerabilities of the Bretton Woods system. These are still at the center of many discussions today. This paper argues that there is a remarkable continuity in Triffin's work. From his earliest writings, Triffin developed a vision...