Ronald MacDonald - Böcker

First published in 2007. Exchange Rate Economics: Theories and Evidence is the second edition of Floating Exchange Rates: Theories and Evidence, and builds on the successful content and structure of the previous edition, but has been comprehensively updated and expanded to include additional literature on the determination of both fixed and floating exchange rates. Core topics covered include: • the purchasing power parity hypothesis and the PPP puzzle; • the monetary and portfolio-balance approaches to exchange rates; • the new open economy macroeconomics approach to exchange rates; and • the determination of exchange rates in target zone models and speculative attack models. Exchange Rate Economics: Theories and Evidence also includes extensive discussion of recent econometric work on exchange rates with a particular focus on equilibrium exchange rates and measuring exchange rate misalignment, as well as discussion on the non-fundamentals-based approaches to exchange rate behaviour, such as the market microstructure approach. The book will appeal to academics and postgraduate students with an interest in all aspects of international finance and will also be of interest to practitioners concerned with issues relating to equilibrium exchange rates and the forecastability of currencies in terms of macroeconomic fundamentals.

First published in 2007. Exchange Rate Economics: Theories and Evidence is the second edition of Floating Exchange Rates: Theories and Evidence, and builds on the successful content and structure of the previous edition, but has been comprehensively updated and expanded to include additional literature on the determination of both fixed and floating exchange rates. Core topics covered include: • the purchasing power parity hypothesis and the PPP puzzle; • the monetary and portfolio-balance approaches to exchange rates; • the new open economy macroeconomics approach to exchange rates; and • the determination of exchange rates in target zone models and speculative attack models. Exchange Rate Economics: Theories and Evidence also includes extensive discussion of recent econometric work on exchange rates with a particular focus on equilibrium exchange rates and measuring exchange rate misalignment, as well as discussion on the non-fundamentals-based approaches to exchange rate behaviour, such as the market microstructure approach. The book will appeal to academics and postgraduate students with an interest in all aspects of international finance and will also be of interest to practitioners concerned with issues relating to equilibrium exchange rates and the forecastability of currencies in terms of macroeconomic fundamentals.

The present global monetary regime is based on floating among the major advanced countries. A key underlying factor behind the present regime is credibility to maintain stable monetary policies. The origin of credibility in monetary regimes goes back to the pre-1914 classical gold standard. In that regime, adherence by central banks to the rule of convertibility of national currencies in terms of a fixed weight of gold provided a nominal anchor to the price level. Between 1914 and the present several monetary regimes gradually moved away from gold, with varying success in maintaining price stability and credibility. In this book, the editors present ten studies combining historical narrative with econometrics that analyze the role of credibility in four monetary regimes, from the gold standard to the present managed float.

International Money and Finance, Third Edition, is an invaluable resource for advanced undergraduates and postgraduates studying International Economy and Finance.

Forty years ago the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms came into force. It was born of the shared conviction that breaches of the most elementary human rights, such as had been experienced in the 1930s and '40s, should never be allowed to occur again. The Convention and the control bodies responsible for ensuring the observance of the engagements undertaken by the contracting States have had a profound influence on democratic European society in the latter half of this century, and have had repercussions outside Europe too; indeed the European system of human rights protection has served as a model or basic reference text for other regional systems. The European System for the Protection of Human Rights is a unique collection of essays by some of the most outstanding scholars and practitioners in the field of European Human Rights. Its aim is not only to sum up forty years of European experience in the collective endeavour to protect human rights, but above all to stimulate critical thinking about that experience and to review whether the Convention sytem as it stands is still fitted to meet the needs of European society in the coming millenium.

A key objective of the Central European Economies (CEE) on their transition path from planned to more market-oriented economies has been membership of the European Union (EU). The start of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) in 1999 has added membership of the EMU to the agenda for the CEEs. The task of the so-called Visegrad countries (the Czech and Slovak Republics, Hungary and Poland) of preparing for EU and EMU membership is the key theme underlying the papers contained in this volume. There are many issues to be resolved before the Visegrad countries are admitted into the EU, and this volume focuses on the issues relating to macroeconomic policies and financial sector structures. The chapters contain new theoretical and empirical results and also comprehensive institutional overviews.

How successful is PPP, and its extension in the monetary model, as a measure of the equilibrium exchange rate? What are the determinants and dynamics of equilibrium real exchange rates? How can misalignments be measured, and what are their causes? What are the effects of specific policies upon the equilibrium exchange rate? The answers to these questions are important to academic theorists, policymakers, international bankers and investment fund managers. This volume encompasses all of the competing views of equilibrium exchange rate determination, from PPP, through other reduced form models, to the macroeconomic balance approach. This volume is essentially empirical: what do we know about exchange rates? The different econometric and theoretical approaches taken by the various authors in this volume lead to mutually consistent conclusions. This consistency gives us confidence that significant progress has been made in understanding what are the fundamental determinants of exchange rates and what are the forces operating to bring them back in line with the fundamentals.

Are foreign exchange markets efficient? Are fundamentals important for predicting exchange rate movements? What is the signal-to-ratio of high frequency exchange rate changes? Is it possible to define a measure of the equilibrium exchange rate that is useful from an assessment perspective? The book is a selective survey of current thinking on key topics in exchange rate economics, supplemented throughout by new empirical evidence. The focus is on the use of advanced econometric tools to find answers to these and other questions which are important to practitioners, policy-makers and academic economists. In addition, the book addresses more technical econometric considerations such as the importance of the choice between single-equation and system-wide approaches to modelling the exchange rate, and the reduced form versus structural equation problems. Readers will gain both a comprehensive overview of the way macroeconomists approach exchange rate modelling, and an understanding of how advanced techniques can help them explain and predict the behavior of this crucial economic variable.

The present global monetary regime is based on floating among the major advanced countries. A key underlying factor behind the present regime is credibility to maintain stable monetary policies. The origin of credibility in monetary regimes goes back to the pre-1914 classical gold standard. In that regime, adherence by central banks to the rule of convertibility of national currencies in terms of a fixed weight of gold provided a nominal anchor to the price level. Between 1914 and the present several monetary regimes gradually moved away from gold, with varying success in maintaining price stability and credibility. In this book, the editors present ten studies combining historical narrative with econometrics that analyze the role of credibility in four monetary regimes, from the gold standard to the present managed float.

Are foreign exchange markets efficient? Are fundamentals important for predicting exchange rate movements? What is the signal-to-ratio of high frequency exchange rate changes? Is it possible to define a measure of the equilibrium exchange rate that is useful from an assessment perspective? The book is a selective survey of current thinking on key topics in exchange rate economics, supplemented throughout by new empirical evidence. The focus is on the use of advanced econometric tools to find answers to these and other questions which are important to practitioners, policy-makers and academic economists. In addition, the book addresses more technical econometric considerations such as the importance of the choice between single-equation and system-wide approaches to modelling the exchange rate, and the reduced form versus structural equation problems. Readers will gain both a comprehensive overview of the way macroeconomists approach exchange rate modelling, and an understanding of how advanced techniques can help them explain and predict the behavior of this crucial economic variable.

A key objective of the Central European Economies (CEE) on their transition path from planned to more market-oriented economies has been membership of the European Union (EU). The start of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) in 1999 has added membership of the EMU to the agenda for the CEEs. The task of the so-called Visègrad countries (the Czech and Slovak Republics, Hungary and Poland) of preparing for EU and EMU membership is the key theme underlying the papers contained in this volume. There are many issues to be resolved before the Visègrad countries are admitted into the EU, and this volume focuses on the issues relating to macroeconomic policies and financial sector structures. The chapters of Central Europe Towards Monetary Union: Macroeconomic Underpinnings and Financial Reputation contain new theoretical and empirical results and also comprehensive institutional overviews. The intended readership of the book is policy makers and economists working in the academic and financial sectors.

This is the second volume in a series which has been founded by the Faculty of Law in the University of Western Ontario as a forum for presentation of research in law and related social sciences. The primary object of the series is to promote collaboration between lawyers, social scientists, juristic philosophers, and others who are interested in exploring social values, processes, and institutions. In the present volume the Editorial Committee continues its policy of presenting papers public law and public aspects of private law, jurisprudence, and associated philosophy, constitutionalism, and juridicial international questions. The volume opens with a far-reaching comparative study of mental incapacity in criminal law by the First Lady of American criminal law. This is followed by a much needed factual discussion of law and morals. The remaining essays, apart from a short note on narcotic drug addiction, consider various aspects of current problems in international law, the study of impartiality in legal systems being especially timely in view of recent changes in the United Nations Secretariat.

This co-operative venture by thirty-eight leading Canadian lawyers, jurists, and scholars is the first published survey on a major scale to cover nearly all aspects of Canadian relations with international organization. In recent years active Canadian involvement in controversies exercising major intergovernmental organizations and raising complex questions of international law has burgeoned to the point that Canada's role often far exceeds what might normally be expected of a middle power with a limited population. In some cases Canada has taken a leading part comparable to the major powers. This Canadian activity, variously applauded as creative or rejected as dangerous, is reviewed and assessed in these pages. More than a factual recitation of events, this volume attempts to explain why the Candian approach developed as it did and what factors, or patterns, are exerting perceivable influences on the prsent shaping of policy. Unusual in the vast scopt of the subject matter, the work covers such topics as: the constitution and functioning of international organizations; this relations of individuals and corporations with states other than those of which they are nationals; multinational corporations; control of the extraterritorial activities of individuals and corporations; pollution of the air, the fresh waters, and the ocean; the sea bed, the continental shelf, and the conservation of the fisheries. This volume is impressive recognition of the work done by Canadian lawyers in contributing during recent years to questions of jurisprudence among the nations of the world.

These essays were presented originally as lectures at the official ceremonies which marked the opening of the new Law Building in the University of Toronto. The book is intended to be a sharing of the ideas of the eminent lecturers with the community at large as well as a reminder of what was a happy and significant event in the life of one university. The theme running throughout the four essays is the phenomenon of law, like art, constantly racing to catch up with experience. Each author considers this phenomenon in the context of a problem on which he is a specialist. Cecil A. Wright opens the volume with a fresh and eloquent look at some basic questions in legal education: the place of the law school in the university, the lawyer's struggle with specifics under the shadow of general principles, the need for more understanding of the law in action, and the requirements of research in the social sciences. Principal J.A. Corry draws attention to the impress of social changes on traditional constitutional values and procedures in Canada, and he calls for more expert and secretarial assistance for the judiciary, a revamped committee system for the Commons, improvements in the quality of procedure and personnel of administrative boards and tribunals. He concludes with the remarks that the key to the future of public law is the durability of the temper that demands both substantive fair chances for all and procedural fair play for all. The Chief Justice of the High Court for Ontario write son a subject of great contemporary interest: compensation for injuries sustained through the operation of motor vehicles on the highways. "When only a small fraction of the cases that have gone the whole process of being prepared and set down for trial and are on the list for trial, with the attendant cost to litigants, actually go on trial, the judicial process is being used for other than judicial purposes." Chief Justice McRuer demonstrates that in this area of law-applying the ordinary judicial procedure has become only an incident to the bargaining procedure. The volume closes with Lord Devlin's admirable analysis of the M'Naghten Rule on mental abnormality. He regards the object of the Rule as being to separate acquittal from an enlightened sentence. The Rule is considered in relations to the Rule of Law as well as to dangers and benefits of compulsory treatment. In opposing its alteration Lord Devlin concludes that "as a matter of theory, I think there is something logical -- it may be astringently logical, but it is logical -- in selecting as the test of responsibility to the law, reason and reason along."

The idea of the Arctic Ocean as a mediterranean sea is a shock to those of us—and that includes most of us—who cannot shake ourselves free of the Mercatorean vision. Yet this theme is repeated by many of the eminent ocntributors to this volume: as Michael Marsden states, "IT is difficult to impress upon the public and industry at large that the most essential quality of the Arctic is not cold, or gold, or polar bears, but a central position in the world community." This book, then, is about the North as a frontier, and about Canada's relations with the world beyond that frontier. It is about the Arctic community of which Canada is one of the major members, along with the Soviet Union, the United States, Denmark, Iceland, and Norway. It is also an exercise in perspective. Canadians have long been aware of the significance of their Atlantic and Pacific frontiers and of the implications of their Southern frontier. This volume points out that Canada is not a three-sided country. While it does not neglect the military importance of the Arctic, it endeavours to widen the scope of interest. But it does not present the familiar arguments about the surpassing importance of the Arctic. It deflates as well as inflates. Its purpose is to assess as precisely as possible the implications of the Arctic frontier, not to induce either visions or nightmares. It is intended not only for Canadians but for all those who are interested in the polar regions or in the shape of the world at large. The papers in this volume were assembled in collaboration by the Canadian Institute of International Affairs and the Arctic Institute of North America.

This authoritative book comprises key papers written on exchange rate economics by the eminent scholar Ronald MacDonald.Each of the highly focused chapters discusses the important issues that his research has pursued in this area. The papers are organised under four headings: monetary fundamentals and exchange rate forecasting; equilibrium exchange rate; expectations formation news and risk; and the economics of fixed exchange rates and credibility issues. Among the key findings, Ronald MacDonald concludes that it is possible to successfully forecast currencies in an out of sample context using macroeconomic fundamentals. Additionally, from a practitioner's perspective, well-founded and useful measures of an equilibrium exchange rate can be calculated once violations of the purchasing power parity concept are recognised.This essential book contains a number of academic orientated papers that postgraduate students and academics will find invaluable for their research. Practitioners in the financial sector will also be extremely interested in the chapters on exchange rate forecasting and issues relating to equilibrium exchange rates.

Fiscal autonomy could raise economic growth and efficiency in Scotland, benefiting both Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. C. Paul Hallwood and Ronald MacDonald discuss how other reform proposals, which amount to cutting Scotland's block grant, would not be seen as legitimate by Scottish voters, and would be unlikely to reduce the burden on the Westminster budget. The authors demonstrate how public finances can be organized to minimize the price of tranquillity in multi-regional states. Advances proposed in the 'new fiscal federalism' literature are used to explain why fiscal autonomy would be a superior system compared to the present block grant system and fiscal federalism, whereby Scotland would be granted limited tax powers. Their extensive review of recent econometric studies finds that tax devolution in other countries has been largely successful.

This book – written by leading academics and practitioners in the field – brings together cutting edge research on exchange rate regime and monetary union issues. There is a particular focus on the implications for member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) which is itself working towards forming a monetary union for the Gulf States.The relatively dramatic movements in the US dollar in the recent past, and also in the early 1990s, have called the practice of pegging to the US dollar into question for a group of countries that predominantly rely on hydrocarbons as their primary export. The book considers the key issues which must be addressed by the GCC in trying to form a monetary union for the Gulf countries and also the rigid pegging of member states’ currencies to the US dollar. The proposed monetary union raises clear issues in terms of the appropriateness of such a regime for these countries and whether, for example, the necessary institutional mechanisms are in place ahead of the proposed union. Currency Union and Exchange Rate Issues brings together the perspectives of a group of experts who focus on these important issues, and provide analysis of the policy options. Academics, policymakers and postgraduates in international finance will find much to consider and learn from in this informative book.