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Fixed Exchange Rates, Flexible Exchange Rates, or the Middle of the Road: a Re-Examination of the Arguments in View of Recent Experience

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The Reconstruction of International Monetary Arrangements

Abstract

Dissatisfaction with the workings of flexible exchange rates has recently become rather widespread, in Europe at least. Concern with exchange rate movements is no longer confined to the business world and to economic journalists but is also increasingly expressed by academic economists. Two features of the post-Bretton Woods era have, in particular, been the source of much disenchantment with flexible exchange rates: wide (‘excessive’?) movements and high short-run variability in both nominal and real exchange rates, and apparently strong transmission of economic disturbances across countries, especially from the United States to the rest of the world.

Research support from the Fonds National Suisse de la Recherche Scientifique under Grant No. 4.361-0.19.09 is gratefully acknowledged.

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© 1987 Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago

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Genberg, H., Swoboda, A.K. (1987). Fixed Exchange Rates, Flexible Exchange Rates, or the Middle of the Road: a Re-Examination of the Arguments in View of Recent Experience. In: Aliber, R.Z. (eds) The Reconstruction of International Monetary Arrangements. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18513-9_6

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