Macroeconomic Policy Coordination and Membership of the Single European Currency: Another Case of British Exceptionalism?

Political Quarterly

Volumn 74, Issue 1, 2003, Pages 91-100

  Hay, Colin ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0141596315     PISSN: 00323179     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-923x.00516     Document Type: Review

References (14)

1. On New Labour's new Keynesian/new monetarist economics, see E. Balls, 'Open Macroeconomics in an Open Economy', Scottish Journal of Political Economy, 1998, pp. 113-32.
2. HM Treasury, UK Membership of the Single European Currency: An Assessment of the Five Economic Tests, London, HMSO, 1997, p. 2.
3. A. M. El-Agraa, 'Will Britain Adopt the Euro?', in A. M. El-Agraa, ed., The Euro and Britain: Implications of Moving into the EMU, London, Prentice-Hall, 2002, pp. 369-70.
4. I. Begg and S. Horrell, 'UK Banking and the Euro', in El-Agraa, ed., The Euro and Britain, p. 303.
5. C. Hay, 'Making a Virtue of a Perceived Necessity . . . And a Necessity of a Perceived Virtue: "Third Way" Political Economy, Globalisation and Economic Compulsion', plenary address, annual conference of the British Universities Industrial Relations Association, University of Stirling, July 2002; see also P. Arestis and M. Sawyer, 'The Economic Analysis Underpinning the "Third Way"', New Political Economy, 2001, pp. 255-78.
6. C. Hay, 'Making a Virtue of a Perceived Necessity . . . And a Necessity of a Perceived Virtue: "Third Way" Political Economy, Globalisation and Economic Compulsion', plenary address, annual conference of the British Universities Industrial Relations Association, University of Stirling, July 2002; see also P. Arestis and M. Sawyer, 'The Economic Analysis Underpinning the "Third Way"', New Political Economy, 2001, pp. 255-78.
7. E. Balls, 'Open Macroeconomics in an Open Economy'.
8. See, inter alia, F. Kydland and E. C. Prescott, 'Rules Rather than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans', Journal of Political Economy, 1977, pp. 473-92.
9. HM Treasury, UK Membership of the Single European Currency, pp. 10-17.
10. In one sense this may seem paradoxical, for the rationale underpinning the operation of the ECB itself is clearly new Keynesian. The point is, however, that within a strict new Keynesian paradigm it is irrational for Britain to join a currency union at a time when any significant interest rates disparity persists.
11. Hay, 'Making a Virtue of a Perceived Necessity'.
12. HM Treasury, UK Membership of the Single European Currency, p. 10, emphasis added.
13. Indeed, this issue might form the basis for negotiation with the Commission were British membership of the SEC on the cards. I am indebted to Kenneth Dyson for bringing my attention to this point.
14. See D. Coates and C. Hay, 'The Internal and External Face of New Labour's Political Economy', Government and Opposition, 2001, pp. 447-71.