Policy Inconsistencies and the Political Economy of Currency Crises

2017 ◽  
Vol 08 (01) ◽  
pp. 1750004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Puspa D. Amri ◽  
Thomas D. Willett

Formal models of currency crises have shown that inconsistencies between countries' domestic and exchange rate policies are a major cause of currency crises. To understand why such prolonged inconsistencies exist, we need to go beyond standard economic models and take political economy and behavioral considerations into account. We sketch out ways in which such considerations can be taken into account and highlight recent research that is useful for this project. We also offer some directions for future research and a brief guide to the empirical identification of currency crises and to the measurements of some of the relevant political and economic policy variables.

Author(s):  
Georg Menz

The explosive rise in not just public, but also private debt has recently attracted more scholarly attention. This is a novel development and might expose politico-economic models of governance to instability from an angle previously underappreciated. The liberalization of credit access in the Anglo-American countries, and, somewhat later, beyond those, might be seen as liberating for some, but they also create the potential for entrapment in debt. The term ‘privatized Keynesianism’ has been proposed to suggest a systematic agenda behind the facilitated access to lending. In this chapter, the broader access to investment vehicles is also being scrutinized, although upon closer inspection any claims of mass ownership of shares turn out not to be tenable.


2009 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 347-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
PAOLO RIGUZZI

AbstractThis essay evaluates the political economy of Mexico during the Porfirian period (1876–1911), with the aim of discussing advances in scholarship and presenting an outline of the elements for a future research agenda. To this end, the essay examines the current state of knowledge on four crucial aspects of the Mexican economy: growth and its dimensions; the state, finance and economic strategies; the construction and functioning of the internal market; and the international economic relations of Mexico during the first period of globalisation. In particular, it assesses the arguments that link features of Porfirian economic organisation with the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution in 1910.


2021 ◽  
pp. 030913252199391
Author(s):  
Sara H Nelson ◽  
Patrick Bigger

The assertion that ‘ecosystems are infrastructure’ is now common in conservation science and ecosystem management. This article interrogates this infrastructural ontology, which we argue underpins diverse practices of conservation investment and ecosystem management focused on the strategic management of ecosystem functions to sustain and secure human life. We trace the genealogies and geographies of infrastructural nature as an ontology and paradigm of investment that coexists (sometimes in tension) with extractivist commodity regimes. We draw links between literatures on the political economy of ecosystem services and infrastructure and highlight three themes that hold promise for future research: labor, territory, and finance.


2015 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 365-367

Benjamin J. Cohen of University of California, Santa Barbara reviews “Currency Politics: The Political Economy of Exchange Rate Policy”, by Jeffry A. Frieden. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: “Analyzes the politics surrounding exchange rates, including the influence of industries on the political process. Discusses the political economy of currency choice; a theory of currency policy preferences; the United States─from greenbacks to gold, 1862-79; the United States─silver threats among the gold, 1880-96; European monetary integration─from Bretton Woods to the euro and beyond; Latin American currency policy, 1970-2010; the political economy of Latin American currency crises; and the politics of exchange rates─implications and extensions.” Frieden is Professor of Government at Harvard University.


2021 ◽  
pp. 45-68
Author(s):  
Jack Copley

This chapter provides a historical overview of the profitability crisis that undermined the postwar economic boom, gave rise to the phenomenon of stagflation, and ultimately drove the financial liberalizations explored in this book. This chapter puts forward a novel historical categorization of British stagflation, by identifying two distinct phases within Britain’s experience of the global profitability crisis. The first, from 1967 to 1977, was characterized by low rates of profit, rising inflation, and repeated current account imbalances that resulted in currency crises. The second, from 1977 to 1983, still saw low profitability and high inflation, but the rising price of sterling ensured that there were no sterling crises. The chapter then details how governments combined governing strategies of depoliticized discipline and palliation in different ways during these two periods of acute crisis in order to navigate the contradictory imperatives of global competitiveness and domestic legitimacy. Policies of financial liberalization constituted attempts to support these strategies.


2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hal Hill

Economists broadly agree on many key economic policy issues, but economics as a discipline has provided much less guidance on why and how economic policy reform occurs and how to develop institutional mechanisms that enable governments to adopt “good” economic policy. Political scientists are adept at identifying coalitions, constituencies, institutions, and interest groups, but they less commonly examine the implications for economic policy. Thus, work at the intersection between economics and politics—of why and how policy reform takes place—remains relatively unexplored territory. This is especially so in developing countries where political processes are more personalistic, institutions often less well established, outcomes more fluid, and the detailed case study literature on economic policy making still in its infancy. This paper provides an analytical survey of economic policy reform in Southeast Asia. It ranges across the major policy U-turns and the incremental reforms, with special reference to macroeconomic management and trade policy. On the basis of several case studies and set against the broader international literature, we advance nine conclusions on the political economy of reform.


Author(s):  
Ronen Mandelkern ◽  
Michael Shalev

Israel’s political economy has been transformed since the 1980s from a developmental to a neoliberal model. This chapter describes and explains this transformation, emphasizing the unevenness and incompleteness of liberalization and its impact on socioeconomic inequality. Adopting a historical-institutionalist perspective to explain both the rise of Israeli neoliberalism and its unevenness, the chapter argues that liberalization was led by economic technocrats in state agencies, who were guided by liberal economic ideas and simultaneously pursuing their interest in greater authority and autonomy. The technocrats were empowered by re-engineering economic policy institutions and cooperating with other political actors. However, their ability to fulfill the goal of technocratic management of a competition-driven economy was limited by the continuing power of some sectors of both business and labor and the continuing vibrancy of the state’s national and military projects. The conclusion discusses recent challenges to neoliberalism in Israel as a result of public discontent and conflict between state actors.


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