Currency unions (Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University, 2001)
Based on a conference held at the Hoover Institution in May 2000. The present volume includes non-technical summaries of these papers. - Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002
Ecuador and the international monetary fund / Stanley Fischer -- One country, one currency? / Alberto Alesina and Robert J. Barro -- Dollarization and integration / Charles Engel and Andrew K. Rose -- Reflections on dollarization / Guillermo A. Calvo and Carmen M. Reinhard -- Coping with terms of trade shocks: pegs versus floats / Christian Broda -- Monetary independence in emerging markets: the role of the exchange-rate regime / Eduardo Borensztein and Jeromin Zettelmeyer -- Dollarization of liabilities, financial fragility, and exchange-rate policy / Luis Felipe Céspedes, Roberto Chang, and Andrés Velasco -- Do we really need a new global monetary compact? / Maurice Obstfeld and Kenneth Rogoff
Includes bibliographical references and index
Currency Unions reviews the traditional case for flexible exchange rates and countercyclicalthat is, expansionary during recessions and contractionary in boomsmonetary policy, and shows how flexible exchange rate regimes can better insulate the economy from such real disturbances as terms-of-trade shocks. The book also looks at the pitfalls of flexible exchange ratesand why fixed rates, particularly full dollarizationmight be a more sensible choice for some emerging-market countries. The contributors also detail the factors that determine the optimal sizes of currency unions, explain how currency union greatly expands the volume of international trade among its members, and examine the recent implementation of dollarization in Ecuador