The Political Economy of International Co-operation

International economic relations over the past few years have led to increasing interdependence between monetary, financial, and trade relations. Monetary disequilibria such as exchange rate misalignments have led to mounting protectionist pressures while attempts at warding them off have induced policy authorities to discharge the burden of adjustment on macroeconomic and monetary policies. The lack of a widely accepted set of rules of the game has increasingly strained the adjustment mechanisms thus adding to the degree of conflict in the international system rendering the search for new forms of cooperation both more difficult and urgently needed. Issue linkage is challenging the roles of international institutions such as the IMF, GATT, or the World Bank – all being established in the context of an international system (Bretton Woods) – whose general rules of the game made it possible to separate money and trade issues while assuring consistent national economic policies. The book examines the problems of international cooperation which have become central in international political economy. lt investigates the economic base of political processes and hence attempts to respond on economic as well as political grounds to the problems posed by international cooperation.

Papers presented at the international conference "International Cooperation and Interaction between Monetary and Trade Policy" organised in Rome on 20-21 March 1986 by the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) and the Centro Studi Americani. Published also in Italian as L'economia politica della cooperazione internazionale, Milano, Franco Angeli, August 1988 (Ricerche di economia applicata ; 21).