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Bridging a gap between economic theory and observed reality, this book examines the most visible central banks, the move to monetary union in Europe, the IMF's new role, the rise of managed market economies, and the elevated importance of central banks. In central banking, attention has often turned to the management of liquidity crises and the attainment of economic stability. In the global economy, the respective market economies are more interconnected, and information regarding crises in one part of the industrialized world is rapidly communicated to other nations, giving the crises themselves a more immediate impact. The Asian debt and liquidity crises of 1997-98 were seen as having an impact on the United States, the European Union countries, and even China. In the effort to attain international stability, the information emanating from central banks at a policy level is crucial. This book aims to depict an ideal central bank for a globally connected country.
Two developments heighten the need for such an operations/policy-based ideal: the lessons learned from the European moves to monetary union and the establishment of the European Central Bank, and the increased awareness of banking problems in Asia during the 1997-98 debt and liquidity crises. This timely work will be of interest to economists, bank officials, government policy makers and political scientists.
List of contents
Preface
An Analytical/Institutional BaseIntroduction
Fractional Reserves and Selected Causal Linkages
Liquidity and Nominal and Real Rates of Interest
Policy Experiments, Causal Linkages, and the Deutsche Bundesbank en Route to Monetary UnionU.S. Policy Experiments and the Big U-Turn
Open Market Operations, Friedman-System Linkages, and a Money-Policy Surrogate
Bundesbank History, Linkages, and Inflation-Rate Targeting
International Dimensions and Crises with Global ImpactThe Managed Financial System: The International Side
The Asian Crises: Asia and Elsewhere
Asia, Elsewhere, and the IMF
The Golden StraightjacketThe Exchange-Rate and Reserve- and Capital-Flows Mechanisms
Growth and Inflation Rates Across Borders and Time
Central Banking, European, and Other ExperiencesThe Big U-Turn and Monetary Union
Some Money and Banking Lessons
The Global EconomyThe Great Transformation, the Big U-Turn, and Russia
The Global Economy and Developing Economics
Global Economy
References
Index
About the author
WILLIAM FRAZER is Professor of Economics at the University of Florida. He has held faculty fellowships at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania and had research assignments at Federal Reserve banks in New York and Chicago. He has written widely, including
The Friedman Systems: Economic Analysis of Time Series (Praeger, 1997),
The Florida Land Boom: Speculation, Money, and the Banks (Quorum, 1995),
The Central Banks: The International and European Directions (Praeger, 1994), and
The Legacy of Keynes and Friedman: Economic Analysis, Money, and Ideology (Praeger, 1994).
