What Role for Currency Boards? / Edition 1

by John Williamson

Overview

To help overcome its financial crisis, Russia is being urged to create a currency board, which has met with success in other countries such as Argentina, Estonia, and Hong Kong. This study explains what a currency board is and how it differs from a central bank, and examines the advantages and disadvantages of each type of arrangement. The author concludes that currency boards may be quite attractive to small, open economies and a useful prop in those emerging from a very deep macroeconomic crisis, but that their disadvantages outweigh these attractions in most large countries.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780881322224
Publisher:	Peterson Institute for International Economics
Publication date:	09/01/1995
Series:	Policy Analyses in International Economics , #40
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	104
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

John Williamson, senior fellow (retired), was associated with the Institute from 1981 to 2012. He was project director for the UN High-Level Panel on Financing for Development (the Zedillo Report) in 2001; on leave as chief economist for South Asia at the World Bank during 1996–99; economics professor at Pontifica Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (1978–81), University of Warwick (1970–77), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1967, 1980), University of York (1963–68), and Princeton University (1962–63); adviser to the International Monetary Fund (1972–74); and economic consultant to the UK Treasury (1968–70).

Editorial Reviews

A better balanced evaluation of the merits and shortcomings of currency boards than anything the 'evangelicals' have produced.

Anna J. Schwartz

Balanced and even-handed analysis.

Adam Bennett