Ronald I. McKinnon
William D. Eberle Professor of International Economics
Stanford University
Professor McKinnon is the William D. Eberle Professor of International Economics. Current research interests include the East Asian currency crises, the transition from socialism in China and Eastern Europe, the economic slump and liquidity trap in Japan, international monetary reform, and the regulation of banks in the presence of foreign capital flows.
McKinnon was among the first (together with his Stanford colleague, Edward S. Shaw) to analyze "financial repression" as a substantial barrier to successful economic development. In the 1960s and 1970s, ongoing price inflation combined, with numerous government interventions to set interest rates and direct the flow of credit, had shrunk the deposit base for domestic bank lending throughout the developing world. His first book, Money and Capital in Economic Development (1973), analyzed why the prevailing economic doctrines of the time had become too tolerant of inflation and of state interventions in the credit mechanism. Without proper doctrinal constraints, politicians were only too happy direct the flow of credit to suit their own ends.
Recent books include: The Order of Economic Liberalization: Financial Control on the Transition to a Market Economy, 2nd Edition (1993), The Rules of the Game: International Money and Exchange Rates (1996), and Dollar and Yen: Resolving Economic Conflict Between the United States and Japan (with K. Ohno, 1997). Recent (1999) articles include "Foreign Exchange Regimes in Emerging Markets, Moral Hazard, and International Overborrowing (with H. Pill), "The East Asian Dollar Standard, Life after Death?", and "The Foreign Exchange Origins of the Economic Slump in Japan in the 1990s: The Interest Rate Trap" (with K. Ohno).
Professor McKinnon has presented his research in a wide variety conference formats the world over-and then used it as a basis for extensive consulting with central banks and monetary authorities in Asia, Latin America, North America, and Europe, as well as with international agencies such as the IMF, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and U.S. AID.
Professor McKinnon is currently working on a forthcoming volume, The East Asian Exchange Rate Dilemma and the World Dollar Standard. This work examines how establishing long-term dollar parities for exchange rates as a "nominal anchor" against fears of currency depreciation and inflation in the smaller East Asian debtor economies, and against fears of yen appreciation and ongoing deflation in Japan, the region's main creditor, are potentially of great mutual advantage.
Professor McKinnon teaches international trade and finance, economic development, money and banking, and financial control in developing and transitional socialist economies.