(OPTIMUM CURRENCY AREAS
Extended version of a luncheon speech presented at the AConference on Optimum Currency Areas,@ Tel-Aviv University, December 5, 1997
It is a great satisfaction to be the recipient of so much kindness occasioned by my 1961 article on optimum currency areas. I would like to tell you a little about how the article came about, what my intentions were when I wrote it, and then comment on its relevance today.
Genesis of the Article
The beginnings of the idea first occurred to me in the academic year 1955-6 when I was writing my dissertation under James Meade for MIT at the London School of Economics. My dissertation for MIT, titled AEssays on the Theory of Capital Movements@ was entirely devoted to the real side of the subject--the transfer problem, stability conditions, welfar免费论文网 【http://www.51lunwen.net】e implications, factor mobility, transport costs, and so forth; it had nothing to do with flexible or fixed exchange rates. Meade, however, was an ardent advocate of flexible exchange rates and it was a hot subject at LSE. He had suggested that the signers of the Treaty of Rome achieve balance of payments equilibrium by letting exchange rates float. At that time I had an open mind on the subject but I could not see why countries that were in the process of forming a common market should saddle themselves with a new barrier to trade in the form of uncertainty about exchange rates.
In the next academic year, 1956-57, I was a post-doctoral fellow in political economy at the University of Chicago. Friedman, as you know, like Meade, championed flexible exchange rates. Their reasons were very different. M
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