Exchange Rates and Cohesion: Historical Perspectives and Political-Economy Considerations

Abstract

We consider the political economy of exchange rate choice and its implications for economic growth from an historical perspective. Previous studies have tended to find only a weak association between the choice of exchange rate regime on the one hand and growth and cohesion on the other. Our findings confirm this negative result, but then go on to explain it by showing that the implications of the exchange rate regime for growth and cohesion are context-specific. They show that the choice of entry rate is important and that when the global monetary regime operates as an engine of deflation it is inadvisable for countries to link up to it. We draw out the implications of these findings for the debate over Britain and the euro.