Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface
- List of conference participants
- 1 Introduction
- PART I THE ROLE OF FINANCE IN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
- PART IIA CASE STUDIES – FINANCIAL MARKETS AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
- PART IIB CASE STUDIES – GOVERNMENT POLICIES
- PART III DEVELOPMENT FINANCE
- 10 Financing and development in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union: issues and institutional support
- 11 Overview
- Index
11 - Overview
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface
- List of conference participants
- 1 Introduction
- PART I THE ROLE OF FINANCE IN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
- PART IIA CASE STUDIES – FINANCIAL MARKETS AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
- PART IIB CASE STUDIES – GOVERNMENT POLICIES
- PART III DEVELOPMENT FINANCE
- 10 Financing and development in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union: issues and institutional support
- 11 Overview
- Index
Summary
I have been asked to provide a brief overview of the conference. Rather than discussing each of the individual papers, I want to focus my remarks on some general themes, into which many, perhaps most, of the papers can be placed.
Central questions
The central question motivating the conference is, what will be the effect of the formation of the European Monetary Union (EMU) on economic development and on the ability of governments to use monetary instruments to promote economic stabilization and development, both for their country as a whole, and for particular regions within their country. The longstanding presumption has been that with a unified currency, countries abandon the ability to use interest rate policies to promote either growth or economic stabilization: interest rates will be uniform within the currency area.
What is at stake, of course, is more than just the abandonment of an instrument. The very desirability of free trade – from the perspective of a particular country – may be thrown into question. While standard propositions in free trade (under perfect competition) assure us that there are gains from trade, they also point out that free trade may make particular factors of production worse off. The gainers can compensate the losers – though such compensation is seldom made. And if the losers happen to be concentrated disproportionately in a particular country, then that country may actually be worse off.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Finance and DevelopmentIssues and Experience, pp. 343 - 353Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993
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