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The purpose of this paper is to enhance our understanding of effects of International Clearing Unions on the exchange market pressure (EMP). Using Asian Clearing Union (ACU) as an example of a typical International Clearing Union, the authors infers that ACU has not been very successful in synchronizing the EMP in the region. Other countries that are not members of such clearing union but are interested in monetary cooperation with other countries should consider the behavior of their EMP indices before attempting any form of integration. The study also provides a generic methodology for using EMP as an indicator for predicting the feasibility of monetary cooperation across countries.

An EMP model using the median absolute deviation is derived to reflect the policy preferences of each country. The weights for change in foreign reserves and interest rate differential are derived using analytical models. The index is then applied to ACU as a case study using monthly data from 2006 to 2015 for Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Iran. The descriptive statistics are studied to find the possibility of short-run relationship between the exchange rates, foreign exchange reserves and interest rate differential. The longitudinal data set generated is checked for cointegration to evaluate the EMPs of the countries.

The study finds that the EMP of ACU members’ shows similarity only in short-term movement but have no cointegration of EMP indices indicating the absence of long-term relationship. The absence of long-term cointegration of EMP for ACU members also indicates that ICU membership may not necessarily lead to similarity in exchange rate policies that facilitate the formation of a currency union. Creation of an ICU is not a sufficient condition for the formation of a currency union. The study also finds that the sample countries have faced persistent depreciation pressures in the period. The preferred tool for the management of EMP is direct intervention by sale and purchase of foreign currency. Interest rate changes are found to have the most significant effect on EMP.

The EMP model limits itself only to the study of exchange rates, foreign reserves and interest rates. Exchange rate variation and policy responses there to are known to be driven by other factors such as speculation, political factors, autonomous capital flows and micro-level dynamics of exchange markets like order flows among others. The EMP model is a simplification of the market dynamics and does not look for associations on the account of these factors. The model is evaluated for only one ICU where member countries regulate exchange rates. The study of ICUs that comprises free float currencies and pegged currencies may yield different results.

Results indicate that the member of any ICU such as ACU cannot assume that its participation will serve as a foundation for creating higher forms of economic unions such as currency unions. In the absence of any long-term relationship between the EMP of countries, any attempt by these countries may cause the exchange rates to deviate further. This leads to the conclusion that the members of ACU should avoid any attempts to form currency unions or use a common currency for its settlement.

Various countries that are considering the formation of currency union or the use of a common currency peg may like to examine its feasibility using EMP as a tool. Using EMP, they may be able to derive short-term and long-term strategies for pursuing their objectives.

There are few other studies that use EMP as an index for measuring the feasibility of formation of a currency union among countries that are the member of an ICU. While earlier studies apply EMP to a group of countries, none attempt to modify the index to reflect the EMP that is likely to affect central bank policy action. Few studies have attempted to use EMP to study the feasibility of formation of a currency union in South Asia based on exchange rate markets itself.

The purpose of this paper is to make a case for an international clearing house.

The systems postulate is used: the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Specifically, the 2007 Godley‐Lavoie model is exploited.

Domestic banking arrangements are institutionally fragile; they import stability from their central banks. In like manner, relations between central banks must be conducted under a common metric, a world money.

The paper shows that a technical argument for a multilateral clearing house will not be found. The author teases “implicit dynamics” (Stephen Turnovsky) out of national income identities.

The Bretton Woods agreements set up the post‐war monetary order on the basis of fixed exchange rates and autonomous national economic policy. Changes in parity were allowed in the case of fundamental disequilibrium, but this concept was not defined, promoting a lengthy but sterile debate. This paper, after reviewing the main features of the discussion, analyzes Keynes's overlooked contribution, which helps to clarify the issue at stake.

In August, 1971 the Bretton Woods system of international monetary relations ended, “not with a bang but a whimper”. The so‐called Nixon measures signalled a change of arrangements and attitudes which put the world on notice that the United States was no longer prepared to fill the key role in that system. From that moment forward, makeshift arrangements have provided an uneasy interregnum, while the Committee of Twenty distill from the experience of the past and the wisdom of the present the essence of a new system.

This chapter argues that monetary integration must precede, rather than follow, monetary unification, in order to avoid the occurrence of structural and systemic crises. It briefly overviews the relevant literature on european monetary union (EMU) with regard to the criteria to set up an optimum currency area (OCA) according to the mainstream view. It then points out that adopting the euro as single currency for a number of heterogeneous countries led inevitably to a number of major negative effects, so much so because of the counterproductive financial constraints induced by the Euro-area fiscal and monetary policies framework. Particularly, the lack of fiscal transfers between these countries and the dogmatic attitude of the European Central Bank (ECB) as regards its policy strategy and goal increase, rather than reducing, the unemployment rate, and the degree of financial instability across the euro area. In fact, a way out of the euro area exists without renouncing to the (long-run) benefits of monetary integration. It implies that countries whose population suffers most of “fiscal consolidation” introduce their national currencies again, limiting the use of the euro to their central banks only, in order for them to settle all international trade and financial-market transactions carried out by residents in these countries. This monetary–structural reform will be instrumental in increasing financial stability and employment levels across Europe, thereby inducing positive effects also for trade and public finance.

This introduction to the essays that follow argues that the chief problem with the dominant understanding of world affairs in the disciplines of International Relations and International Political Economy, including their Marxist versions, is an a historical, non-contradictory and economically cosmopolitan conception of capitalism. In their place, geopolitical economy is a new approach which returns to the conception of capitalism embodied in the culmination of classical political economy, Marxism. It was historical in two senses, distinguishing capitalism as a historically specific mode of social production involving by value production and understanding that its contradictions drive forward capitalism’s own history in a central way. This approach must further develop and specify uneven and combined development as the dominant pattern in the unfolding of capitalist international relations, one that is constitutive of its component states themselves. Secondly, it must understand the logic of the actions undertaken by capitalist states as emerging from the struggles involved in the formation of capitalist states and from the contradictions that are set in train once capitalism is established. Finally, it must see in the ways that class and national struggles and resulting state actions have modified the functioning of capitalism the possibilities of replacing the disorder, contestation and war that are the spontaneous result of capitalism for international relations the basis for a cooperative order in relations between states, an order which can also be the means for realising the permanent revolution and solidifying its gains on the international or world plane.

This chapter starts from the issue of debt in the context of a national economy by contrasting two opposed views: policy prescriptions based on the Washington Consensus prioritize low public debt and a limited role of the government in the development process whereas a more heterodox view considers debt as logical, necessary, and helpful in order to allow the government to pursue an ambitious growth and development strategy. However, things change when the economy is considered in its international context: foreign debt is different from domestic debt and while the same heterodox analysis still rejects the Washington Consensus' demand for trade and financial liberalization, its own ambitious development strategies for the domestic economy get constrained by trade deficits, the threat of capital flight, and exchange rate instability. The question arises how the government can still significantly contribute to economic development beyond the limits of a purely private sector–driven approach. This is why this chapter reviews proposals to relax or overcome the balance-of-payments constraint. Finally, it considers a reform of international payments, which can be implemented by a single country unilaterally, and which enables it to stabilize its current account, avoid foreign debt accumulation, and support domestic development strategies.

The paper explores the precarious balance between modernizing monetary systems by means of digital currencies (either issued by the central bank itself or independently) and safeguarding financial stability as also ensured by tangible payment (and saving) instruments like paper money.

Which aspects of modern payment systems could contribute to improve the way of functioning of today's globalized economy? And, which might even threaten the above-mentioned instable equilibrium? This survey paper aims, precisely, at giving some preliminary answers to a complex – therefore, ongoing – debate at scientific as well as banking and political levels.

The coexistence of State's money (i.e. “legal tender”) and cryptocurrencies can have a disciplining effect on central banks. Nevertheless, there are still high risks connected to the introduction of central bank digital currency, which should be by far not considered to be a perfect substitute of current cash. At the same time, cryptocurrencies issued by central banks might be exposed to the drawbacks of cryptocurrencies without benefiting from correspondingly strong advantages. A well-governed two-tier system to be achieved through innovation in payment infrastructures might be, in turn, more preferable. Regulated competition by new players combined with “traditional” deposits and central bank elements remains essential, although central banks should embrace the technologies underlying cryptocurrencies, because risk payment service providers could move to other currency areas considered to be more appealing for buyers and sellers.

We do not see specific limitations besides the fact that the following is for sure a broad field of scientific research to be covered, which is at the same time at the origin of ongoing developments and findings. Originality and implications of the paper are, instead, not only represented by its conclusions (which highlight the role of traditional payment instruments and stress why the concept of “money” still has to have specific features) but also by its approach of recent literature's review combined with equally strong logical-analytical insights.

In the light of these considerations, even the role of traditional payment systems like paper money is by far not outdated or cannot be – at this point, at least – replaced by central bank digital currencies (whose features based on dematerialization despite being issued and guaranteed by a public authority are very different).

No matter which form it might assume is what differentiates economic from barter transactions. This conclusion is by far not tautological or self-evident since the notion of money has historically been a great object of scientific discussion. In the light of increasingly modern payment instruments, there is no question that money and the effectiveness of related monetary policies have to be also explored from a social perspective according to different monetary scenarios, ranging from central bank digital currencies to private currencies and cash restrictions/abolition.

The originality/value of the following article is represented by the fact that it (1) refers to some of the most relevant and recent contributions to this research field, (2) moves from payment systems in general to their newest trends like cryptocurrencies, cash restrictions (or, even, abolition proposals) and monetary policy while (3) combining all elements to reach a common picture. The paper aims at being a comprehensive contribution dealing with "money" in its broadest but also newest sense.

This paper reassesses the center-periphery relationship in light of recent developments in the international monetary system and the currency hierarchy in a geopolitical economy framework. The center-periphery relationship has historically been examined in relation to the international division of labor, the pace and diffusion of technical progress associated with it, and the pattern of consumption it embodies. As conceived by structuralists and dependentistas, it is not seen as the result of the uneven and combined development of capitalism: it does not take into account the struggle between the dominant States (center), which want to reproduce the current order and the contender States (periphery) which aim to accelerate capitalist development to reduce the unevenness, and even to undermine the imperial project of dominant states. In a geopolitical economy framework, a powerful obstacle peripheral countries face in their efforts at combined development is the international monetary system, something that the theorists of the center-periphery relationship have perhaps overlooked. Because of its subordinate position in the currency hierarchy, the periphery is subject to greater external vulnerability, greater instability of exchange and interest rates, and as a result, enjoys a more restricted policy space. In this sense, the chapter shows that, beyond macroeconomic policies, the currency hierarchy in a context of high capital mobility limits a range of developmental policies of peripheral countries, reinforcing the unevenness of world economy and constraining combined development.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the view that America is “the land of the future”. It argues that, owing to its sponsorship of a model of development that is exploitive and unsustainable, this is no longer the case and that US futurists, in particular, need to consciously re‐evaluate their roles and work.

The paper advances a cultural critique of US hegemony. It considers background myths and their role in creating “American exceptionalism” in various fields, including futures studies. It also critiques free market ideology, the role of corporations, market failures and the economics of exploitation. This leads to issues of truth and power and the view that a continuation of an ideology of “free enterprise” leads to the collapse of the global system.

The paper suggests a number of strategies for futurists to consider as ways of opening out their vision beyond current limitations.

A rationale is outlined that can support shifts in more progressive directions and moves toward more fruitful work.

The American futures enterprise is currently at risk from its uncritical association with dysfunctions in US society, culture and economy. The paper draws attention to some of these and indicates possible ways forward.