Contents
List of Figures, Tables, and Boxes
Preface and Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations and Acronyms
Introduction
Relationships among the key components
Fitting the pieces: the foreign exchange market
Fitting the pieces: national financial policies
Fitting the pieces: the supply of international money
Who fits the pieces together?
International finance
The politics and technology of money
The plan of this book
Part I. International Monetary Arrangements, Money, and Politics
International agreements
Rules and myths of the gold standard
The Bretton Woods system
Policy responses to payments imbalances
The monetary impact of Vietnam
Monetary artifacts and the Smithsonian Agreement
The EMU is not a bird – but the euro is a money
The future of monetary agreements
Foreign exchange transactions
Buy low and sell high
Gnomes and non-gnomes
The source of exchange crises
The politics of parity
The search for flexibility: floating rates and sliding parities
Floating rates – arguments and experience
Which way after floating?
Gold's role as an international money
Before gold was a 'barbarous relic'
The persistent gold shortage
Turbulence in the gold market
Political and international generalizations
The money-producing industry
The market position of currency brands
A dollar standard world?
The dollar on the hit parade
The euro's challenge to the dollar
Externalized activities
The external currency market
Internalizing regulation
The value of money
Watergate economics
Carter economics
Differences in inflation rates
Reaganomics
The waves rule Britannia
The tunnel at the end of the light
OPEC to rule the world?
Recycling money
Every surplus requires a deficit
Currency reform
Disinflation
Disinflation and financial institutions
The Asian financial crisis and the world inflation rate
Ponzi finance
International lending – the background
The source of developing country debt crises
The economics of debt service
The optimal bankrupt
Workouts, reschedulings, and bankruptcy
The grail of monetary reform
Bureaucracy is a growth industry
The new mercantilists
Reform requires a consensus?
Resolving conflicts among competing interests
Economic expertise cannot solve political problems
Part II. The Costs of 100 National Monies
Why is the playing field bumpy?
Outgrowing the market
Planned and transition economies
The role of government
Why don't the trains run on time?
Tax havens
Transfer pricing
Economic impact of taxation
Why tax rates differ
Corporate tax rates in industrial countries
Taxes on foreign income
Taxes on money
Tax anything that can't move
Banking competition
What banks produce
The payments mechanism
Competition among international banks
The competitive edge
A hole in the hedge
Where do financial revolutions come from?
Index funds
Swaps
Derivatives and options
'The collapsing house of cards'?
The implications of globalization
Is the world stock market integrated or segmented?
Investing the lottery prize in bonds
The horse race in stocks
The American challenge?
Patterns of market penetration
Why firms invest abroad
The costs of direct foreign inverstment
Whither the conflict?
The Japanese challenge
Japan, Inc.
The asset price bubble
The external impact of Japan
China's 'big history'
The economy of the overseas Chinese
The new Central Europe
Market prices and the planned economy
East European finance
The move to the market economy
The command and the market economy
Where do market institutions come from?
The débâcle in Russian finance
A common international currency?
Collapse of rules of behaviour
New rules or international monetary institutions?
Exchange controls?
The role of gold
Index