Interest Groups And Monetary Integration: The Political Economy Of Exchange Regime Choice

This book analyzes monetary integration and the choice and collapse of exchange rate regimes from a positive political economy perspective.This approach offers new insights to the widely discussed but only incompletely understood topic of exchange rate regime choice. A coherent framework is developed, which challenges the traditional and normative theory of monetary integration by focusing on interest groups such as industries and bureaucracies to analyze how they influence policymakers and the outcome of economic policy. It is shown that European monetary integration in the last century and today, as well as monetary disintegration in the former Soviet Union, can be interpreted and understood in this perspective. }This book analyzes monetary integration and the choice and collapse of exchange rate regimes from a positive political economy perspective. Carsten Hefeker examines the influence of important interest groups in a coherent framework, which challenges the traditional and normative theory of monetary integration. By focusing on interest groups such as industries and bureaucracies, it is possible to understand the development of international monetary regimes in Europe beginning in the last century and culminating in the desire for monetary union today. This approach offers new insights to the widely discussed but only incompletely understood topic of exchange rate regime choice.The books contribution is to develop a coherent and consistent framework to understand the choice and the collapse of exchange rate regimes, which are usually separated in the literature. The study begins by analyzing monetary integration in nineteenth-century Europe in the course of national building in Italy, Switzerland, and Germany, as well as supranational attempts in the Austro-German Monetary Union, the Latin Monetary Union, and the Scandinavian Monetary Union. Hefeker then turns to current monetary integration in Europe and describes in detail the interests of large and small industries, in particular the financial industry, and the role of the German Bundesbank in this process. Finally, the monetary disintegration in the territory of the former Soviet Union is seen in this perspective. }

Table of Contents:
Introduction; The Economics and the Politics of Exchange Rate Regimes; Monetary Integration in the XIXth Century; The Endogeneity of Fixed Exchange Rates; Industrial Interests in Monetary Union: The Banking Industry; Bureaucratic Interests in Monetary Union: The Bundesbank; Monetary Disintegration in the Former Soviet Union; Conclusion

About the Author :
Carsten Hefeker is a faculty member of the Department of Economics at the University of Basel.