The Macroeconomics of Global Imbalances
European and Asian Perspectives
Routledge Studies in the Modern World Economy Series

This book is the result of a workshop on the effects of globalization on Asian and European countries, organized by Marc Uzan and the Austrian Ministry of Finance in April 2006. Bringing together key academics, policy makers and private market participants, these chapters cover the current debate of global imbalances and the way to resolve the disequilibrium in the international monetary system and understand the need for international cooperation among the different monetary areas of the world.

Various important points come out of the book; firstly there is an emphasis on the difficulties for Europeans and Asians to find common positions vis-à-vis global imbalances due to different exchange rate regimes throughout Asia preventing similar responses. The role of the US dollar as a world currency is also discussed, as well as EU regional monetary cooperation and an analysis of the Euro. The implementation of economic policy to redress global imbalances is also considered, as is the emergence of China on the world stage and its industrial development projects. These questions and the way the international financial community will resolve them, will have a huge impact in the functioning of the international monetary system. The current unwinding of the global imbalances that we are facing with the global market disruptions since August 2007, demonstrate that a new geography of international finance is emerging between Europe and Asia. The book addresses also the way that a dialog in the field in monetary arena needs to be structured between Europe and Asia.

Introduction Marc Uzan and Kurt Bayer 1. Issues for the Europe-Asia Monetary and Financial Dialogue Richard Portes 2. A Few Thoughts on Global Imbalances Jacques de Larosière 3. A World out of Balance? Angel Ubide 4. Global Imbalances and Regional Monetary Cooperation Josef Christl 5. Global Imbalances and East Asia’s Policy Adjustments Yung Chul Park 6. Global Imbalances and Regional Monetary Cooperation Charles Wyplosz 7. Global Payments Imbalances and East Asia’s Monetary and Financial Cooperation Hiro Kawai 8. Asia is Learning the Wrong Lessons from Its 1997-98 Financial Crisis: The Rising Risks of a New and Different Type of Financial Crisis in Asia Nouriel Roubini 9. Asia Future Currency Arrangements: The Indonesian View Miranda Goeltom 10. Regional Financial Arrangements in Asia Jeffrey Shafer 11. Six Notable Features of Macroeconomic Performance in Post-crisis Asia Shinji Takagi

Marc Uzan is Executive Director and founder of the Reinventing Bretton Woods committee, a think tank focusing on the international financial architecture issues through a regular dialog between markets and governments. He is the author of Financial SystemUnder Stress (1996) and co-editor with Dominic Wilson of the book Private CapitalFlows (2000) also published by Routledge.