Hans-Jürgen Vosgerau - Böcker

Ass a f R a z i nand Hans-Jiirgen Vosgerau The eight chapters of this volume have been grouped into two parts. Part A of contains chapters which are mainly monetary in character, whereas real aspects international economics are treated in Part B. It goes without saying that this is only a device for structuring the field. In substance most chapters reveal the close connections between real and monetary aspects. Part A on "Inflation, Exchange Rates, and Macro-Economic Adjustment in the Global Economy" consists of four papers. In recent years, an inflation targeting framework for monetary policy has been adopted by New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, Finland, Sweden, Australia, and Spain (in chronological order). The use of inflation targeting can be viewed as a further step in the evolution of monetary policy techniques adopted by central banks. A common feature of the countries that have adopted inflation targets is the relatively poor inflation record over the last 30 years compared with other industrial countries such as Germany, Switzerland, Japan and the United States. Because of their relatively good inflation record, this latter group of countries has not explicitly adopted inflation targeting. With, or without, explicit inflation targeting the monetary policy credibility hinges on the independence of the central bank. Alex Cukierman addresses the issue of central bank independence by surveying alternative ways to characterize independence.

New Institutional Arrangements for the World Economy Hans-Jiirgen Vosgerau, Konstanz I. The Problem During the first days of July 1987 the newly established Sonderforschungs­ bereich 178 "Internationalisierung der Wirtschaft" held its first symposium in Konstanz/Bodensee. "New Institutional Arrangements for the World Economy" were discussed by a group of economists and lawyers working in the fields of interna­ tional trade, international monetary economics, international finance, international public choice, and international economic law. Cooperation between these areas of research is an important condition for attaining the long-term aim of the Sonderforschungsbereich, viz. analysis of the complex interdependencies between international economic transactions of various kinds and international economy­ related institutions in a broad sense. The nature of these interdependencies seems to be crucial for the world economy's further development. A better understanding of their characteristics will be helpful for the solution of most imminent international economic problems. Four problem areas were especially addressed during the conference, each con­ sisting of three or four contributions. The revised papers are presented in this volume, each followed by a comment of the invited discussant, or by a summary of the discussion. The last contribution is meant as a summary conclusion and has no comment. The four problem areas discussed were: (1) Exchange rate stabilization and econ­ omic policy coordination, (2) International financial markets and their regulation, (3) Protectionism and the Uruguay GAIT-round, and (4) The institutional frame­ work for international production.

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".