Ebook: Real Adjustment Processes under Floating Exchange Rates
- Tags: International Economics
- Series: Studies in International Economics and Institutions
- Year: 1990
- Publisher: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
- Edition: 1
- Language: English
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Helmut Schneider 1. The Formulation of the Research Programme 1. In the late sixties the acceleration of US inflation revived the discussion of the fifties about the superiority of flexible exchange rates: The US balance of payments deteriorated since 1965, the dollar shortage after World War II changed to a dollar surplus. The import of US inflation by their main trading partners intensified political pressures so that at the beginning of the seventies most leading countries decided, contrary to the rules of the Bretton Woods agreement, to stop their intervention in the market for foreign exchange and to let the exchange rates be determined by market forces. It is worthwhile recalling that at that time one had only very limited experience with the regime of flexible exchange rates: The most important case, the floating of Canadian against the US dollar, could not be generalized to a world where nearly all important countries adhered to the regime of flexible exchange rates. ! - But one really had rich experience with destabilizing capital flows (or "hot money") that forced monetary authorities to adjust exchange rates in a system of managed flexibility to the expecta tions of "speculators".
This book deals with adjustment problems in economies when exchange rates and terms of trade are flexible. New technologies and new resources lead to changes which are favorable to some and unfavorable to other industries (depending in part on the importcontent of their products) as to the changing environment. Responses of particular firms not only involve prices and outputs, but also new techniques, investments, productlines, and marketing efforts. Public policy responses have in effect recently taken the form of non-tariff barriers, which can have undesired effects. The contributions of this volume deal with adjustment strategies of firms and of public policy. It is shown that capital mobility creates instability problems, but also eases the adjustment to new situations.