The International Monetary System: Should It Be Reformed?
质疑国际货币体系失败论和改革提议，指出汇率短期不可预测是有效资产市场的固有特征，不应据此评判体系表现。
A casual glance through the Proceedings of past annual meetings of the American Economic Association reveals that in almost every year during the past twenty years, president-elects of the AEA have devoted at least one session to an examination of issues concerning the international monetary system. Prominent on the agenda has been the question of reform. How should the international monetary system be reformed so as to function more effectively? premise underlying this question is that the international monetary system has failed and that it must be reformed by an institutional change. In what follows I present some skeptical notes on both the verdict on the failure of the system and on some proposals for reform, especially the target-zones proposal. To set the stage, it is worth noting that one of the main sources of disenchantments with the present monetary system has been the unpredictability of exchange There has been nothing more confusing than reading through the ex post journalistic explanations offered for the day-to-day changes in the U.S. dollar. For example, over the past few years we were told that The dollar fell because the money supply grew faster than expected-thereby generating inflationary expectations, but on another occasion we were told that The dollar rose because the money supply grew faster than expectedthereby generating expectations that the Fed is likely to tighten up and raise interest rates. On another date we were told that The dollar fell since the budget deficit exceeded previous forecasts-thereby generating inflationary expectations on the belief that the Fed will have to monetize the deficit, but, on another occasion we were told that The dollar rose since the budget deficit exceeded previous forecasts-thereby generating expectations that government borrowing needs will drive up interest rates since the Fed is unlikely to give up its firm stance. On yet another day we were told that The dollar fell since oil prices fell-thereby hurting Mexico and other debtriddenoil-producing countries whose bad fortune may bring about the collapse of important U.S. banks, but, on another occasion we were told that The dollar rose since oil prices fell-thereby helping the debt-ridden oil-consuming countries whose improved fortune will help the vulnerable position of important U.S. banks. More recently the dollar changed again, and this time the explanation was a bit more sophisticated: The dollar changed because the extent of the revision of the estimated GNP growth rate was smaller than the expected revision of previous forecasts of these estimates. One cannot but sympathize with the difficulties shared by newspaper reporters and financial analysts who feel obligated to come up with daily explanations for daily fluctuations of exchange rates, and one can only imagine the deep frustration that yielded the recent headline in the International Herald Tribune according to which The dollar rose on no news. dismal performance of short-term forecasting does not reflect a lack of effort. Rather, it is an intrinsic characteristic of efficient asset markets. Difficulties in forecasting short-term indices of stock markets (like the Dow-Jones index) do not call however, for a reform of the way stock markets operate. For similar reasons one should not assess the performance of the international monetary system on the basis of short-term forecastability of exchange This does *International Monetary Fund, Washington, D.C. 20431, University of Chicago, and National Bureau of Economic Research. research reported here is part of the NBER's research programs in International Studies and Economic Fluctuations. Any opinions expressed are my own and not those of the National Bureau of Economic Research. 205