Capital Flows and Domestic and International Order: Trilemmas from Macroeconomics to Political Economy and International Relations

Michael Bordo and Harold James

No 21017, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper explains the problem of adjustment to the challenges of globalization in terms of the logic underpinning four distinct policy constraints or trilemmas, and their interrelationship, and in particular the disturbances that arise from capital flows. The analysis of a policy trilemma was developed first as a diagnosis of exchange rate problems (the incompatibility of free capital flows with monetary policy autonomy and a fixed exchange rate regime); but the approach can be extended. The second trilemma we describe is the incompatibility between financial stability, capital mobility and fixed exchange rates. The third example extends the analysis to politics, and looks at the strains in reconciling democratic politics with monetary autonomy and capital movements. Finally we examine the security aspect and look at the interactions of democracy with capital flows and international order. The trilemmas in short depict the way that domestic monetary, financial, economic and political systems are interconnected with the international. They can be described as the impossible policy choices at the heart of globalization. Frequently, the trilemmas conjure up countervailing anti-globalization tendencies and trends.

JEL-codes: E4 E6 N1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cba, nep-ifn, nep-mac, nep-mon, nep-opm and nep-pol
Note: DAE ME
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w21017.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21017

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w21017

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().