Introduction

This book is intended as a sequel to and a complement of my Essays in Monetary Economics of 1967. It incorporates the bulk, intellectually if not in terms of total pages published, of my subsequent work on domestic and international monetary theory and my sustained fascination with the problems of the international monetary system. I make no apologies for either my concern with the international aspects of money, or the inclusion in this book of so much international monetary material; for I have become increasingly impressed in recent years with the conviction that the traditional division between closed-economy and open-economy monetary theory is a barrier to clear thought, and that domestic monetary phenomena for most of the countries with which most economists are concerned can only be understood in an international monetary context.