Dollar Adjustment: How Far? Against What? (Special Report) [Paperback]

C. Fred Bergsten (Editor), John Williamson (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Special Report | Publication Date: November 30, 2004

Building on the scholarship of the highly successful 2003 volume, Dollar Overvaluation and the World Economy, this book assesses the progress that has been made to date in correcting the sizable misalignments of key national currencies that developed in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The book examines whether a dollar decline is needed for the United States and the rest of the world to achieve sustainable current account positions and what the impact of a major dollar realignment would be on economies around the world. It also features new ideas on the effectiveness of intervention in moving exchange rates in a desired direction. The book brings together perspectives from government, industry, and academia.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

C. Fred Bergsten has been director of the Institute for International Economics since its creation in 1981. He is chairman of the "Shadow G-8," which advises the G-8 countries on their annual summit meetings. He was chairman of the Competitiveness Policy Council, which was created by Congress, throughout its existence from 1991 to 1995 and chairman of the APEC Eminent Persons Group throughout its existence from 1993 to 1995. He was assistant secretary for international affairs of the US Treasury (1977-81); assistant for international economic affairs to the National Security Council (1969-71); and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution (1972-76), the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (1981), and the Council on Foreign Relations (1967-68). He is the author, coauthor, or editor of numerous books on a wide range of international economic issues, including Dollar Overvaluation and the World Economy (2003), No More Bashing: Building a New Japan-United States Economic Relationship (2001), Global Economic Leadership and the Group of Seven (1996), The Dilemmas of the Dollar (2d ed, 1996), and America in the World Economy: A Strategy for the 1990s (1988).

John Williamson has been Senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics since 1981. 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). He is author or editor of numerous studies on international monetary and developing-world debt issues, including Delivering on Debt Relief: From IMF Gold to a New Aid Architecture (2002), Exchange Rate Regimes for Emerging Markets: Reviving the Intermediate Option (2000), The Crawling Band as an Exchange Rate Regime (1996), What Role for Currency Boards? (1995), Estimating Equilibrium Exchange Rates (1994), The Political Economy of Policy Reform (1993), Economic Consequences of Soviet Disintegration (1993), Trade and Payments After Soviet Disintegration (1992), From Soviet Disunion to Eastern Economic Community? with Oleh Havrylyshyn (1991), Currency Convertibility in Eastern Europe (1991), Latin American Adjustment: How Much Has Happened? (1990), and Targets and Indicators: A Blueprint for the International Coordination of Economic Policy with Marcus Miller (1987).

Product Details

• Paperback: 294 pages
• Publisher: Peterson Institute (November 30, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0881323780
• ISBN-13: 978-0881323788
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,132,179 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Tell us something we dont already know Fred, December 1, 2004

By 

A_2007_reader (Vladivostok, Russia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dollar Adjustment: How Far? Against What? (Special Report) (Paperback)

Gotta love economists. This book is like one of those rush to market books after a major news event--that's stale 6 months later.

The only saving grace is that the authors are respectable economists (oxymoron?) who have published monographs about currencies.

Otherwise, just surf the web and see how Asia likes currency intervention and others float. Which raises the question: why fixed versus floating? See the works of Robert A. Mundell, who won the Nobel in 1999. In short, with a floating currency and free capital flows, fiscal policy can't affect overall demand because changes in government spending trigger changes in interest rates, exchange rates, and trade flows that are offsetting (sterilized). Can it be that Asian countries want more control over their economy (rightly or wrongly)?