The Economics of Adjustment and Growth moves the study of macroeconomics for developing economies away from the traditional static approach and toward a more dynamic, growth-oriented framework. Pierre-Richard Agénor presents an analysis of policy issues involved in designing economic adjustment programs in developing countries and structural reform policies aimed at fostering economic growth. Emphasizing the need to take into account the structural features of these countries, his work dwells on the considerable body of analytical research and empirical evidence of the past two decades in academic circles and international organizations. It provides cutting-edge analysis of many current real-world issues, such as financial crises and the role of trade integration in fostering economic growth. Overall the book offers an impressive overview of the macroeconomic and structural adjustment issues facing developing economies today.

As a fundamental review and critique of activist economic policies, this book is a unique contribution to classical political economy. "Monetary Policy and Macroeconomic Stabilization" is about macroeconomic stabilization policy, with emphasis on the value of a distinct national monetary policy to growth. Ole Bjorn Roste's argument is for public officials to restrain themselves in the pursuit of policy. As the author notes: when you know less, you should do less.The history of modern macroeconomics started in 1936 with the publication of Keynes' "General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money". The problems of the Great depression of the 1930s paved the way for a change of focus, from the long run to economic fluctuations in the short run, and from nominal to real variables, such as unemployment and aggregate output.Keynes offered clear policy implications in tune with the times. Because economic adjustment was slow, waiting for the economy to recover by itself was irresponsible. Particularly fiscal policy was essential to return to high employment. Monetary policy could affect aggregate demand through Interest rates, but was less important. Roste discusses the role of monetary policy, starting out with the implications of the theory of optimum currency areas (OCAs). This is followed by estimates of the output loss associated with disinflation policy (the sacrifice ratio) for six OECD economies. Further, Roste models the dynamic adjustment to negative, local labor-market shocks, with particular relevance to Scandinavia, in a final section.The idea that governments should pursue stabilizing fiscal or monetary policies with regard to real variables is often taken for granted by the public, if not by economists. Among the reasons for skepticism, is the presence of differing views on how economies really work, that the state of a given economy becomes known only after a time lag, and that economic agents react to policy and expectations of policy. For these reasons, the effects of policy are generally uncertain. This book explains why the role of history is critical to the study of macroeconomics.p>

Abstract: The paper presents a dynamic model for small to medium open economies operating under a fixed exchange rate regime. The model provides a partial explanation of the channels through which fiscal and monetary policy affects the real exchange rate. An empirical investigation is conducted for the case of Argentina during the currency board period of 1991-2001. Empirical estimates show that fiscal policy may indeed be an efficient instrument for promoting macroeconomic stability insofar as it encourages convergence toward long-run equilibrium and alters the long-term balance between exports and consumption, both private and public. The simulation applied to Argentina shows that if the share of public spending in the economy is higher than the share of imports, an increase in the tax rate will stimulate capital stock slightly, at least in the short term, and depreciate the real effective exchange rate. In the long run, the fiscal policy affects the value of the real exchange rate and consequently external competitiveness.

In spite of the attention paid exchange rates in recent economic debates on developing countries, relatively few studies have systematically analyzed in detail the various ramifications of exchange rate policy in these countries. In this new volume from the National Bureau of Economic Research, leading economists use rigorous models to tackle various exchange rate issues, while also illuminating policy implications that emerge from their analyses. The volume, divided into four main sections, addresses: the role of exchange rates in stabilization programs and the adjustment process; the importance of exchange rate policy during liberalization reform in developing countries; exchange rate problems relevant and unique to developing countries, illustrated by case studies; and the problems defining, measuring, and identifying determinants of real exchange rates. Authors of individual papers examine the relation between commercial policies and exchange rates, the role of exchange rate policy in stabilization programs, the effectiveness of devaluations as a policy tool, and the interaction between exchange rate terms of trade an capital flow. This research will not only prove crucial to our understanding of the role of exchange rates in developing countries, but will clearly set the standard for future work in the field.

This book reflects the state of the art in nonlinear economic dynamics, providing a broad overview of dynamic economic models at different levels. The wide variety of approaches ranges from theoretical and simulation analysis to methodological study. In particular, it examines the local and global asymptotical behavior of both macro- and micro- level mathematical models, theoretically as well as using simulation. It also focuses on systems with one or more time delays for which new methodology has to be developed to investigate their asymptotic properties. The book offers a comprehensive summary of the existing methodology with extensions to the more complex model variants, since considerations on bounded rationality of complex economic behavior provide the foundation underlying choice-theoretic and policy-oriented studies of macro behavior, which impact the real macro economy. It includes 13 chapters addressing traditional models such as monopoly, duopoly and oligopoly in microeconomics and Keynesian, Goodwinian, and Kaldor–Kaleckian models in macroeconomics. Each chapter presents new aspects of these traditional models that have never been seen before. This work renews the past wisdom and reveals tomorrow's knowledge.

This paper studies exchange rate behavior in models with moving long-run equilibria incorporating alternative price-adjustment mechanisms.The paper demonstrates that price-adjustment rules proposed by Mussa andby Barro and Grossman yield models that are empirically indistinguishable from each other. For speeds of goods-market adjustment that are "too fast," the Barro-Grossman rule appears to induce instability; but we argue that when the ruleis interpreted properly, models incorporating it are dynamically stable regardless of the speed at which disequilibriumis eliminated. The Barro-Grossman pricing scheme is shown to be a natural generalization, to a setting of moving long-run equilibria, of less versatile schemes proposed in earlier literature on exchange rate dynamics.