Originally published in 1982. This book deals with exchange-rate determination and the implications of floating rate regimes for the time paths of prices and quantities. It develops a class of stochastic equilibrium models of the open economy operating under flexible exchange rates, assuming that agents are endowed with rational expectations but do not possess full current information as to the state of the world. Chapters look at a model’s response to economic disturbances, the effect on non-traded goods, and cyclical variations of the terms of trade. The final chapter considers a model to investigate purchasing parity issues.

These twelve essays take up economic management under flexible exchange rates in the presence of uncertainty. Nearly all of the contributions adopt a rational expectations framework, focusing on the stochastic aspects of the assumption and exploring the variability of, for example, output and prices in relation to the variability of various external disturbances.Jagdeep Bhandari is Associate Professor of International Economics at West Virginia University.

These seventeen essays provide an accessible and thorough reference for understanding the role of exchange rates in the international monetary system since 1973, when the rates were allowed to float. The essays analyze such issues as exchange rate movements, exchange risk premia, investor expectations of exchange rates and behavior of exchange rates in different systems. Frankel's sound empirical treatment of exchange rate questions shows that it is possible to produce work that is interesting from a purely intellectual viewpoint while contributing to practical knowledge of the real world of international economics and finance.The essays have been organized in a way that provides an introduction to the field of empirical international finance. Part I documents the steady reduction in barriers to international capital movement and leads logically to part II, which explains how exchange rates are determined. Both monetary and portfolio-based models are surveyed in part II, providing a clear transition to the topic of part III; the possible existence of an exchange risk premium. Part IV applies the tools discussed in earlier sections to explore various policy questions related to exchange rate expectations such as whether foreign exchange intervention matters and whether the European monetary system had become credible by 1991. Each part begins with a detailed introduction explaining not only the central issues of that section but also suggesting connections with other essays in the book.Jeffrey A. Frankel is Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley.

Putting the matters back into money matters is David Laidler's intent in this collection of ten essays on the role of monetary institutions in the development of monetary theory and the implications of these ideas for policy. Together, the essays provide a coherent and accessible introduction to the power and range of thinking by one of the world's leading monetary economists. In Taking Money Seriously Laidler seeks to develop and sustain monetarist ideas of the 1960s in relationship to the new classical economics and to argue their continued policy relevance. Money matters, he points out, because monetary exchange rather than the Walrasian market coordinates economic activity in the real world. Laidler's discussion of the costs of inflation points up the importance of money's means-of-exchange role and is followed by an extended critique of new classical economics. He devotes several chapters to policy issues, in which he asserts that the monetary system is a public good whose organization and control present inherently political problems. David Laidler is Professor of Economics at the University of Western Ontario.