I'm not sure if this new article is really in your style, but I would love to hear your take on it: http://www.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/showlink.aspx?bookmarkid=PT55TUEE3FJ5&preview=article&linkid=57788484-53cb-466d-8366-e01c6cde44c5&pdaffid=ZVFwBG5jk4Kvl9OaBJc5%2bg%3d%3d
The article is about the proposal (sort of) to consider a common currency for parts of East Asia. It's interesting that this has received some play in the media but virtually no mention on the econ blogs I follow. My guess is that economists do not take this seriously, at least not now.
The EU was much farther along the road to integration when it adopted the EMU/euro. This is necessary, otherwise the macroeconomic strains and institutional differences would simply overwhelm the project. As it is, the euro still has weak regions that can't adjust through depreciation and may yet cause some havoc. East Asia has barely begun to walk down that road, and the institutional aspects are even less promising.
But here is an alternative thought. It may turn out that the main path to integration in the region is not political, at the level of nation states and their economic policies, but through the proliferation of production networks. I can imagine a steady widening and firming up of cross-border networks, on some hybrid of Japanese or Korean models (is there an emerging Chinese network model?), and at some point we would look at the region and say, this is a composite economic entity.
Some sort of coordination on xrate pegs would have to be part of such a scenario, though.
This story is so unsurprising somehow, although it would not surprise me if it is not retracted. There is no doubt that such a policy will damage the standing of the institution in question very badly.
This is well known in Moscow. In economics the hot new outfit is the New Economic School, run by Sergei Guriev, who is an adviser to the government. Most of the faculty have degrees from highly ranked western universities and publish in recognized western economics journals. No way this crowd would put up with such nonsense (yes, they are mostly a pretty conventional bunch in their approaches, although with a few non-mainstream types).
This outfit is also known for being very mathematical, having a strong link to the Mathematical Economics Institute of Moscow, which has long been the home of the most respected-in-the-West of Russian mathematical economists, such as Victor Polterovich, a Fellow of the Econometric Society. For anybody who does not know, Russia (and Ukraine also) has a very strong system of mathematical education at all levels.
I'm not sure if this new article is really in your style, but I would love to hear your take on it: http://www.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/showlink.aspx?bookmarkid=PT55TUEE3FJ5&preview=article&linkid=57788484-53cb-466d-8366-e01c6cde44c5&pdaffid=ZVFwBG5jk4Kvl9OaBJc5%2bg%3d%3d
ReplyDeleteBest regards,
MediaMentions
Yes, this is unrelated, but since you asked:
ReplyDeleteThe article is about the proposal (sort of) to consider a common currency for parts of East Asia. It's interesting that this has received some play in the media but virtually no mention on the econ blogs I follow. My guess is that economists do not take this seriously, at least not now.
The EU was much farther along the road to integration when it adopted the EMU/euro. This is necessary, otherwise the macroeconomic strains and institutional differences would simply overwhelm the project. As it is, the euro still has weak regions that can't adjust through depreciation and may yet cause some havoc. East Asia has barely begun to walk down that road, and the institutional aspects are even less promising.
But here is an alternative thought. It may turn out that the main path to integration in the region is not political, at the level of nation states and their economic policies, but through the proliferation of production networks. I can imagine a steady widening and firming up of cross-border networks, on some hybrid of Japanese or Korean models (is there an emerging Chinese network model?), and at some point we would look at the region and say, this is a composite economic entity.
Some sort of coordination on xrate pegs would have to be part of such a scenario, though.
This story is so unsurprising somehow, although it would not surprise me if it is not retracted. There is no doubt that such a policy will damage the standing of the institution in question very badly.
ReplyDeleteThis is well known in Moscow. In economics the hot new outfit is the New Economic School, run by Sergei Guriev, who is an adviser to the government. Most of the faculty have degrees from highly ranked western universities and publish in recognized western economics journals. No way this crowd would put up with such nonsense (yes, they are mostly a pretty conventional bunch in their approaches, although with a few non-mainstream types).
This outfit is also known for being very mathematical, having a strong link to the Mathematical Economics Institute of Moscow, which has long been the home of the most respected-in-the-West of Russian mathematical economists, such as Victor Polterovich, a Fellow of the Econometric Society. For anybody who does not know, Russia (and Ukraine also) has a very strong system of mathematical education at all levels.