The Eastern Caribbean Economic and Currency Union
The Eastern Caribbean Economic and Currency Union

Author: Mr.Alfred Schipke

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2013-04-10

Total Pages: 546

ISBN-13: 1616352655

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The Eastern Caribbean Economic and Currency Union (OECS/ECCU) is one of four currency unions in the world. As in other parts of the world in the aftermath of the global economic and financial crisis, the region is at a crossroads, facing the major challenges of creating jobs, making growth more inclusive, reforming the banking system, and managing volatility, while grappling with high public debt and persistent low economic growth. Policymakers have the critical task of implementing strong reforms to strengthen the monetary union while also laying the foundation for accelerating growth. This Handbook provides a comprehensive analysis of the key issues in the OECS/ECCU, including its organization and economic and financial sector linkages, and provides policy recommendations to foster economic growth.

Regional Integration in West Africa
Regional Integration in West Africa

Author: Eswar Prasad

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2021-07-13

Total Pages: 203

ISBN-13: 0815738544

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" Assessing the potential benefits and risks of a currency union Leaders of the fifteen-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have set a goal of achieving a monetary and currency union by late 2020. Although some progress has been made toward achieving this ambitious goal, major challenges remain if the region is to realize the necessary macroeconomic convergence and establish the required institutional framework in a relatively short period of time. The proposed union offers many potential benefits, especially for countries with historically high inflation rates and weak central banks. But, as implementation of the euro over the past two decades has shown, folding multiple currencies, representing disparate economies, into a common union comes with significant costs, along with operational challenges and transitional risks. All these potential negatives must be considered carefully by ECOWAS leaders seeking tomeet a self-imposed deadline. This book, by two leading experts on economics and Africa, makes a significant analytical contribution to the debates now under way about how ECOWAS could achieve and manage its currency union, andthe ramifications for the African continent. "

A Currency Union for the Caribbean
A Currency Union for the Caribbean

Author: Mr. DeLisle Worrell

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2003-02-01

Total Pages: 36

ISBN-13: 145189287X

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The experiences of Caribbean Economic Community countries show that exchange rate depreciation in these countries is inflationary, and that, while changes in the relative prices of tradables may affect exports, tourism, and imports, nominal exchange rate changes have no predictable effect on those relative prices. Under these circumstances, economic literature indicates that a fixed exchange rate regime is optimal, and Caribbean countries with (quasi-) currency boards have been successful in maintaining durable exchange rate pegs. Commitment to a currency board is a potentially vital step in achieving a currency union for the Caribbean.

Regional Monetary Integration
Regional Monetary Integration

Author: Peter B. Kenen

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2007-11-26

Total Pages: 199

ISBN-13: 1139466038

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This book surveys the prospects for regional monetary integration in various parts of the world. Beginning with a brief review of the theory of optimal currency areas, it goes on to examine the structure and functioning of the European Monetary Union, then turns to the prospects for monetary integration elsewhere in the world - North America, South America, and East Asia. Such cooperation may take the form of full-fledged monetary unions or looser forms of monetary cooperation. The book emphasizes the economic and institutional requirements for successful monetary integration, including the need for a single central bank in the case of a full-fledged monetary union, and the corresponding need for multinational institutions to safeguard its independence and assure its accountability. The book concludes with a chapter on the implications of monetary integration for the United States and the US dollar.

Currency Unions
Currency Unions

Author: Patrick Honohan

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2020-07-31

Total Pages: 1280

ISBN-13: 9781788975421

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The past twenty years have seen two waves of research on currency unions, prompted by the early experience of the European Economic and Monetary Union and by the existential crisis experienced by the euro area as a part of the global financial crisis. Alongside an original introduction, this important collection assembles key papers exploring a range of themes in these two waves of research, including subtopics such as reassessment of optimal currency area theory, new views on the policy choices, and the past and present experience of various currency unions. With a concluding section that addresses the question of complementary institutions going beyond an inflation-focused central bank, this two-volume collection provides an ample and comprehensive overview of currency unions.

Eastern Caribbean Currency Union
Eastern Caribbean Currency Union

Author: International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2020-03-05

Total Pages: 79

ISBN-13: 1513536222

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This paper presents IMF’s 2019 Discussion on Common Policies of Member Countries of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU). ECCU’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth accelerated from 3/4 percent in 2017 to 3 3/4 percent in 2018, reflecting buoyancy in the tourism sector, sizable Citizenship-by-Investment (CBI) inflows, and a recovery from the 2017 hurricanes in Anguilla and Dominica, which were supported by large public investments in reconstruction. Fiscal deficits increased in 2018–2019, but they have remained moderate. Efforts are needed to streamline, and re-balance tax incentives based on clear principles consistent with international best practices. External imbalances are sizable and significant financial sector vulnerabilities affect both banks and non-banks. Growth is projected to gradually moderate toward its long-term average of 2 1/4 percent as the cyclical momentum normalizes and CBI inflows ease. These trends would also contribute to wider fiscal deficits, ending the downward drift in public debt dynamics. The outlook is clouded by downside risks, including a possible intensification of natural disasters and financial sector weaknesses.

Bills of Union
Bills of Union

Author: Aaron Graham

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-03-12

Total Pages: 147

ISBN-13: 3030676773

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This book brings together for the first time more than half a dozen proposals for an imperial paper currency in the mid-eighteenth century British Atlantic, to show how manage colonial currency and banking in the expanding empire. Existing studies have looked at the successes and failures of schemes in individual colonies. But some had grander ambitions, such as Benjamin Franklin, and offered proposals for ‘imperial’ or ‘continental’ paper currencies and monetary unions which would help knit together colonial territories throughout North America and even the Caribbean into a cohesive whole during a moment of imperial reform. This book brings together these proposals for the first time, including several never studied before, to show how thinkers and writers on empire, currency and finance drew on financial practices, precedents and principles from across the British Atlantic to present their own visions of monetary union and the future of empire. In doing so it makes an important and original contribution to the wider histories of monetary and financial thought and theory and the roots of American monetary policy, and the links between finance, empire, politics, reform and revolution. It will be of interest to academics working on the history of finance, banking and currency in the British Isles, North America and the Caribbean in the eighteenth century, as well as those working on the political economy of the British Empire, including mercantilism, trade, warfare and the politics of empire in the decades leading up to the American Revolution.

The Monetary Geography of Africa
The Monetary Geography of Africa

Author: Paul R. Masson

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2004-11-30

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 9780815797531

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Africa is working toward the goal of creating a common currency that would serve as a symbol of African unity. The advantages of a common currency include lower transaction costs, increased stability, and greater insulation of central banks from pressures to provide monetary financing. Disadvantages relate to asymmetries among countries, especially in their terms of trade and in the degree of fiscal discipline. More disciplined countries will not want to form a union with countries whose excessive spending puts upward pressure on the central bank's monetary expansion. In T he Monetary Geography of Africa, Paul Masson and Catherine Pattillo review the history of monetary arrangements on the continent and analyze the current situation and prospects for further integration. They apply lessons from both experience and theory that lead to a number of conclusions. To begin with, West Africa faces a major problem because Nigeria has both asymmetric terms of trade—it is a large oil exporter while its potential partners are oil importers—and most important, large fiscal imbalances. Secondly, a monetary union among all eastern or southern African countries seems infeasible at this stage, since a number of countries suffer from the effects of civil conflicts and drought and are far from achieving the macroeconomic stability of South Africa. Lastly, the plan by Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda to create a common currency seems to be generally compatible with other initiatives that could contribute to greater regional solidarity. However, economic gains would likely favor Kenya, which, unlike the other two countries, has substantial exports to its neighbors, and this may constrain the political will needed to proceed. A more promising strategy for monetary integration would be to build on existing monetary unions—the CFA franc zone in western and central Africa and the Common Monetary Area in southern Africa. Masson and Pattillo argue that the goal of a creating a s

Handbook of Caribbean Economies
Handbook of Caribbean Economies

Author: Robert E. Looney

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-11-10

Total Pages: 542

ISBN-13: 0429560125

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This volume aims to illustrate the uniqueness of the economies of the countries and territories of the Caribbean as well as the similarities they share with other regions. While most countries in the region share many of the characteristics of middle-income countries, theirs is a matter of extremes. Their generally small size suggests a fragility not found elsewhere. While much of the world is beginning to feel some effects of climate change, the Caribbean is ground zero. These factors suggest a difficult road ahead, but the chapters presented in this volume aim to help to spur the search for creative solutions to the region’s problems. The chapters, written by expert contributors, examine the Caribbean economies from several perspectives. Many break new ground in questioning past policy mindsets, while developing new approaches to many of the traditional constraints limiting growth in the region. The volume is organized in four sections. Part I examines commonalities, including issues surrounding small economies, tourism, climate change and energy security. Part II looks at obstacles to sustained progress, for example debt, natural disasters and crime. In Part III chapters consider the specific role of external influences, including the USA and the European Union, the People's Republic of China, as well as regional co-operation. The volume concludes in Part IV with country case studies intended to provide a sense of the diversity that runs through the region.

Cuban Currency
Cuban Currency

Author: Esther Katheryn Whitfield

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2008-01-01

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 0816650365

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With the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, during an economic crisis termed its “special period in times of peace,” Cuba began to court the capitalist world for the first time since its 1959 revolution. With the U.S. dollar instated as domestic currency, the island seemed suddenly accessible to foreign consumers, and their interest in its culture boomed. Cuban Currency is the first book to address the effects on Cuban literature of the country’s spectacular opening to foreign markets that marked the end of the twentieth century. Based on interviews and archival research in Havana, Esther Whitfield argues that writers have both challenged and profited from new transnational markets for their work, with far-reaching literary and ideological implications. Whitfield examines money and cross-cultural economic relations as they are inscribed in Cuban fiction. Exploring the work of Zo Valds, Pedro Juan Gutirrez, Antonio Jos Ponte and others, she draws out writers’ engagements with the troublesome commodification of Cuban identity. Confronting the tourist and publishing industries’ roles in the transformation of the Cuban revolution into commercial capital, Whitfield identifies a body of fiction peculiarly attuned to the material and political challenges of the “special period.” Esther Whitfield is assistant professor of comparative literature at Brown University.