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We investigate fluctuations in the nominal effective exchange rates (NEERs) of East Asian currencies and the Asian monetary unit (AMU), which is computed as a weighted average of East Asian currencies during the global financial crisis. We find that NEERs were more stable for countries that continued to follow a currency basket system during the global financial crisis.

Furthermore, we investigate the relationships among NEERs, AMU, and AMU deviation indicators, which indicate the extent of the deviation in the exchange rate of each East Asian currency from a benchmark rate given in terms of the AMU. By comparing NEERs with a combination of AMU and AMU deviation indicators, we find that there is a strong relationship between them, both before and after the global financial crisis. These results indicate that a coordinated exchange rate policy aimed at stabilizing the AMU deviation indicators will be effective in stabilizing the NEERs of East Asian currencies. In this respect, the AMU deviation indicators, which indicate intraregional exchange rates among East Asian currencies, play a crucial role.

Because NEER trade weights are widely similar among East Asian currencies, a policy aimed at stabilizing a home currency against its NEER may lead to a coordinated exchange rate policy without a common consensus among East Asian countries. In the future, however, coordinated monetary policies should be considered along with coordinated exchange rate policies.

This paper explores the possibilities for policy coordination in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) as well as real effective exchange rate (REER) stability as a prerequisite towards sensible monetary integration. The underlying hypothesis goes with the assertion that countries meeting optimum currency area conditions face more stable exchange rates.

The quantitative analysis encompasses 12 SADC member states over the period 1995-2012. Correlation matrixes, dynamic pooled mean group (PMG) and mean group (MG) estimators and real effective exchange rate (REER) and real exchange rate (RER) equilibrium and misalignment analysis are carried out to arrive at the conclusions.

The study finds that the structural variables used in the PMG model show that there are common fiscal and monetary policy variables that determine REER/RER in the region. However, the exchange rate equilibrium misalignment analysis reveals that SADC economies are characterised by persistent overvaluation at least in the short term. This calls for further sustained policy coordination in the region.

The findings in this paper have important policy implications for economic stability and for the attempt of policy coordination in SADC region for the proposed monetary integration to proceed.

This study is the first attempt that relates the exchange rate as a policy coordination instrument among SADC economies.

This chapter examines exchange rate options for East Asian countries, taking into account their real economic linkages as well as their international financial relations. Particular consideration is given to possible exchange rate cooperation within the region. For this purpose, the literature on the optimal peg is reconsidered and subsequently extended to include a country's international financial asset and liability situation. That is, instead of focusing solely on nominal or real effective exchange rates, the chapter proposes a blend of “real” and “financial” exchange rates for analyzing “optimal” exchange rate policy.

This chapter focuses on the main challenges of teaching and learning European Union (EU) issues, bearing in mind that the future of the EU is far from being granted, the shock of Brexit, and the new technological innovations. The purpose is to design a methodology for teaching EU using knowledge management and design thinking procedures. Knowledge management refers to information selection, acquisition, integration, analysis and sharing knowledge that takes place in an environment dominated by social networks in which technological links play a major role. The design thinking procedures, as a collaborative methodology, create groups of students in the classroom. Each group should represent an EU member state. Once groups are created, the teacher must give them a task that may include a problem that the EU has had to solve during its history. Then, individual groups must be asked to design a solution. A consensus among all participating groups on the proposed solution should be reached. To design a solution, based on a mind map, groups should be working inside and outside the classroom using technological tools and interacting through social media. At the end of this process, students must play a Kahoot to fix and clarify the key concepts of each lesson. This process must be repeated for all the chapters of the EU syllabus. The syllabus is made up of key issues of the EU. Students should be taken to discover how EU affects their lives and to wonder how they would be without the EU.

Asia's economic integration into the global system has many dimensions. It is part of the broader globalization process that has taken place over the past two decades and involves dynamics of convergence, integration, and interactions of both real and financial activities. Section 1 examines some of the recent trends in the real and financial interactions between Asia and the rest of the world and among different markets within Asia. It contains four chapters on this theme, addressing the issues of macroeconomic similarities and differences, interactions among Asian stock markets and between them and the US equity market, as well as spillovers across various types of financial markets in the region in response to shocks.

The renminbi (RMB) has evolved in four phases since its mid-2005 unpegging from the US dollar. After a year's transition, the RMB's effective exchange rate traded for two years within narrow bands around an appreciating trend. That is, the RMB behaved as if it were managed to strengthen gradually against trading partners’ currencies. This experiment was interrupted in mid-2008 and the RMB stabilized against a strong dollar amidst the global financial crisis. If Chinese policy were to return to effective currency stability and other East Asian countries were to pursue similar policies, regional currency stability would be enhanced. That would create more favorable conditions for an evolution towards monetary cooperation.

This study aims to analyze exchange rate risks and the choice of exchange rate policies in a small open economy indebted in foreign currency, incorporating the financial accelerator mechanism.

To examine discussions on the fear of floating, this study develops a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model in which a small open economy model has an open economy financial accelerator mechanism as the external borrowing restriction. The author then compares and analyzes the macroeconomic dynamics in response to an exchange rate shock under different exchange rate systems.

The most interesting finding is that the currency peg for a foreign currency used in borrowing is more efficient than the trade-weighted currency basket policy, regardless of trade openness or trade share.

The result implies that in discussions on the fear of floating, more attention needs to be paid to exchange rate risks in finance. It also suggests that exchange rate policy used to mitigate exchange rate risks in finance stabilizes macroeconomic volatility more efficiently.

The paper provides an answer to the question: which is the more serious problem in the fear of floating and to what would the regime be anchored.

Bertrand Candelon is a professor in International Monetary Economics. He received a PhD from Universite Catholique de Louvain. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, he joined University Maastricht, School of Business and Economics in 2001. He has written extensive works in the area of international finance, in particular on contagion and on the analysis of financial market co-movements. He is one of the founders of the Methods in International Finance Network.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.