The paper summarizes the current theory of how a floating exchange rate is determined, dividing the subject into what determines the steady state and what determines the transition to steady state. The inadequacies of this model are examined, and an alternative “behavioral” model, which...

The history of Latin America’s relations with the international capital market has not been a happy one. Debt crises have recurred with monotonous regularity ever since the 1820’s, about three years after the first loans were contracted by newly independent countries. Despite the theoretical...

Existe un acuerdo generalizado de que los beneficios de la integración en la economía mundial se acumulan sólo después de la apertura de la cuenta de capitales. Sin embargo, muchos países son reticentes a liberalizar, y la literatura sobre la secuencia de una reforma económica –la cual...

The term "Washington Consensus" was originally used to describe a list of ten reforms that I argued were practically universally agreed in Washington to be desirable in most Latin American countries as of 1989. It acquired alternative meanings over the years, one of which was a summary of the...

This paper argues that economic growth is fundamentally constrained from the supply side, which is why it is desirable to maintain the constraints on balance-of-payments deficits that are provided by limited reserves. Reform of the international monetary system could lead to more harm than good...

John Williamson, the originator of the term "Washington consensus," takes issue with Dani Rodrik's contrast of the Spence report with that consensus.