Money and Markets in the Americas: New Challenges for Hemispheric Integration

Xavier de Vanssay is an associate professor of economics at Glendon
College, York University.

Money and Markets in the Americas consists of 19 updated papers that
were originally presented at a Mexico City conference in 1994. The
conference was sponsored by three free-market, or even libertarian,
think tanks: the Fraser Institute (Canada), the Cato Institute (United
States), and the Centro de Investigaciones Sobre la Libre Empresa
(Mexico). The authors are economists or former central bankers.

The book is organized around four themes: the question of monetary
union (is it necessary or even feasible in the Americas?); the situation
in Mexico (what happened there at the end of 1994 with the peso?);
monetary reform; and future policy directions. One author makes the
controversial but interesting recommendation that Mexico set up a
currency board similar to the one that has controlled Argentinian
monetary policy since April 1991.

As with many conference volumes, the quality of the articles is uneven.
There is no consensus among the contributors concerning the appropriate
exchange-rate regime (free-floating or currency board) for Mexico. While
some authors offer well-argued positions on a wide range of
issues—Jean-Luc Migué’s essay on public choice comes to
mind—others are clearly ill-informed. Do we really believe Alan
Walters when he writes that NAFTA has brought about “a completely free
flow of capital and virtual free mobility of labour. In other words,
there is a near economic union”? Overall, this book will be of
interest to monetary economists and political scientists specializing in
the economic integration of the Americas.