Current problems of the International Monetary System: Three analyses

Abstract

panel on "Current Problems in International Finance/' meeting at the present time, has a virtually unlimited smorgasbord from which to fill its plates and food in ample quantity for everyone to fill a second or third plate if he or she so desires. One might well discuss, as a business economist, the possibility of bank failures and financial and monetary collapse that might be triggered by the opportunities offered to would-be-clever operators by the present unparalleled opportunities for speculation on interest rates and forward exchange rates. As a political economist, one might discuss the problem of Arab oil money, and particularly the power politics of arrangements for soft lending from more to less fortunate oil importing countries, as these involve the power positions of the United States, the European Economic Community, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, and the Arab countries themselves. As an international institutionalist, one might discuss the market arrangements and guarantees necessary to lure the Arabs into the civilized world of high international finance and investment, as well as the characteristics of an international monetary system that might be shock-proof against further exercises in the organization of cartels to exploit collective monopoly power in key raw materials. As an international monetary theorist, pure and perhaps also naive, one might consider what changes need to be made in the theory of floating exchange rates now that, for the