International Coordination of Economic Policies: Scope, Methods, and Effects

Jacob A. Frenkel, Morris Goldstein and Paul Masson

No 2670, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper discusses the scope, methods, the effects of international coordination of economic policies. In addressing the scope for and of coordination, the analysis covers the rationale for coordination, barriers to coordination, the range and specificity of policies to be coordinated, the frequency of coordination, and the size of the coordinating group. Turning to the methods of coordination, the emphasis is on the broad issues of rules versus discretion, single-indicator versus multi-indicator approaches, and hegemonic versus more symmetric systems. In an attempt to shed some light on the effects of alternative rule- based proposals for coordination, we present some simulations of a global macroeconomic model (MULTIMQD) developed in the International Monetary Fund. The simulations considered range from 'smoothing rules for monetary and fiscal policy that imply only minimal international coordination, to more activist "target-zone" proposals that place greater restrictions on national authorities in the conduct of monetary and/or fiscal policies. The simulation results are compared to the actual evolution of the world economy over the 1974-87 period. Our findings suggest that simple mechanistic rule-based proposals are unlikely to lead to improved performance.

Date: 1988-07
Note: ITI IFM
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Published as Frenkel, Goldstein, and Masson. "International Coordination of Economic Policies: Scope, Methods, and Effects," from Economic Policy Coordination, Washington, DC: IMF, 1988.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w2670.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:2670

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w2670

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 ().