FUNCTIONING OF THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY SYSTEM UNDER THE INCIDENCE OF GLOBAL ECONOMIC METAMORPHOSES

The article has analyzed the international monetary system's main challenges, whose impact will influence development in the next period. Thus, the main significant challenges were identified: the hegemonic currency, monetary digitization, FinTech, increasing the role of emerging countries

From European Federalism to the European Union, Insights of Nobel Prize Laureate, Maurice Allais

From 1945 to the end of his life, Maurice Allais, Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics (1988), devoted a large part of his work to the European question. As a staunch Unionist, Allais insisted on the fact that, while the threefold freedom of goods, people and capital was necessary to improve the well-being of individuals, it was also a very ambitious goal. Thus, he argued, it was necessary to promote a European federalism on the basis of a scientific criterion: economic democracy—and via an organized method: competitive planning. However, Allais was aware that political integration had to precede economic integration and that economic efficiency could not be ensured without a single currency. He argued that the introduction of the euro had to be accompanied by real monetary reform (credit system, indexation of future commitments, stock markets, international monetary system) in order to regulate the multiplication of financial crises.

Money

As the economic and financial crises of the last decade have highlighted, monetary issues sit at the heart of nearly every major political debate and policy issue in the world economy today. This makes the study of the politics of money perhaps the single most important topic in International Political Economy (IPE). This article surveys the IPE literature on money over the last two decades, highlighting outstanding scholarship on the political economy of central banking, exchange rates, and the international monetary system, as well as the persistent problem of “non-engagement” between scholars of different theoretical and methodological perspectives. In taking stock of the field, the article seeks to identify the many important contributions of each camp, to note outstanding work and scholars that have recently begun to bridge this gap, and to highlight key empirical and theoretical topics where further constructive engagement would enrich our understanding of the politics of money.

From Libra to Diem. The Pursuit of a Global Private Currency

The official launch of the Libra project in 2019, and the subsequent troubles experienced by the project, stimulated a vigorous debate, from different perspectives, on the pros and cons of a private currency with global ambitions. This paper describes the main characteristics of Libra and of its heir, Diem, locating both in a partial taxonomy of the increasingly crowded field of so-called ‘digital currencies’. In the light of the distinguishing features and risks of such an ambitious project, the paper also aims to assess the potential impact on a crucial issue of the present international monetary system: the power to create money.