International Macroeconomics

David Vines continued work with Christopher Allsopp on Fiscal Policy in Europe. This work has been partly funded by the Foreign Office, and has involved co-operation with the consultancy firm Oxford Economic Forecasting and also with Warwick McKibbin at the Australian National University. We have constructed an interpretation of Europe's Stability and Growth as a necessary form of fiscal co-ordination in a monetary union. We have published two joint papers "Fiscal Policy and EMU" National Institute Economic Review (October, 1996) and "Monetary and Fiscal Stabilisation of Demand Shocks within Europe" Review of International Economics (August 1997), joint with Warwick McKibbin.

International Trade And Regionalism

David Vines continued work on regionalism issues. In May he organised a conference on regionalism in Europe and Asia in London - jointly with Peter Drysdale, the Director of the Australia-Japan research Centre in Canberra - which brought a number of economists from the Asia Pacific region to Britain, and then to associated policy meetings in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. During September, he worked with Drysdale in Canberra on the edited book which will result from these meetings, to be published by Cambridge University Press in time for the Europe-Asia summit in London next April. He also worked on two formal mathematical models of aspects of these issues, both joint with Peter Sinclair from Birmingham, one of which is under revision for the Journal of International Economics.

Macroeconomics of Developing Countries

In April the Commonwealth Secretariat published a report titled Coping with Capital Flows, which it commissioned from Richard Portes (LBS) and David Vines, and David Vines gave a paper based on this work in Bankok in September , immediately after the Thai currency crisis. David Vines has continued econometric research into the Thai "boom and bust " with an ANU colleague, Peter Warr.

Global Economic Institutions

David Vines is the Director of the Global Economic Institutions (GEI) Research Programme of the ESRC which was initiated at the beginning of 1994 and runs until 1998. The purpose of the programme is to study how existing global economic institutions and regimes do, and might better, shape international interaction. Research focuses on: the International Monetary Fund; the World Bank; and the World Trading Organisation; on regional trading arrangements and regionalism more generally; on international processes of standards setting; and on international macroeconomic policy. During the year David Vines completed a paper on this general subject for a forthcoming volume on the World Trade Organisation being edited by Anne Krueger. Cambridge University Press have agreed to publish a series of books for the Programme, the first to be edited jointly by David Vines and Professor Peter Drysdale, of the Australian National University, on Regionalism in Europe and Asia, in time for the Europe-Asia summit in London next April. In June a conference was held on the Future of the World Bank at the Foreign Office, which it is hoped will lead to a book. There was a similar meeting in July - held in Cambridge - on International Financial Crises and the Role of the International Monetary Fund. It is hoped that this too will also lead to a book, and perhaps also to a special journal supplement

(a) Publications

• "Fiscal Policy, Monetary Policy and the Management of Demand Shocks within Europe", (with C. J. Allsopp, W. McKibbin, and G. Davies), Review of International Economics, August 1997.
  
• Allsopp, C., and D. Vines (1996) "Fiscal Policy in EMU", National Institute of Economic Review, October.
  
• Coping with International Capital Flows (with Richard Portes) London: Commonwealth Secretariat (April)
  
• "The WTO in relation to the Fund and the Bank: Competencies, Agendas and Linkages", in A. Krueger (ed) (1997) The WTO as an International Organisation. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
  
• "Consistently Exercised Responsibility and Trust: Integrity in the Economy", to appear in Integrity in the Public and Private Domains (edited with Alan Montefiore), forthcoming,1998.
  

(b) Papers in Progress

• "Bigger Trade Blocs need not Entail more Protection" (1996), with Peter Sinclair, under revision for the Journal of International Economics
  
• "Asia Pacific Open Regionalism and the Free Rider Problem - can a Free Trade Club be Both Promising and Attractive?", with Peter Sinclair (September 1997).
  
• "Fiscal Consolidation In Europe: Is The Stability And Growth Pact The Easy Solution To A Prisoners' Dilemma?" with Warwick McKibbin and Christopher Allsopp (September 1997).