The Economics Book

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Global economy

KEY THINKER

Robert Mundell (1932–)

BEFORE

1953 Milton Friedman argues that freely floating exchange rates would enable market forces to resolve problems with balance of payments (the difference between the value of exports and imports).

AFTER

1963 US economist Ronald McKinnon shows that small economies would benefit from a currency union since they can mitigate shocks better than large economies.

1996 US economists Jeffrey Frankel and Andrew Rose argue that the criteria for a currency area are themselves affected by prior economic development.

By the early 1960s the institutions of the post-war economies were well established. ...