This book cuts to the heart of the policy making process by focusing on how political factors affect exchange rate decisions. By grounding insight from economics, economic history and political science in a consistent methodological framework, the author moves beyond the narrow focus of much of current economic research to produce a compelling account of the political economy of exchange ... Read morerate decision making. (Dr. Domenico Lombardi, President, The Oxford Institute for Economic Policy) 'Currency Crises are an elusive phenomenon. At times, all signs point to a storm, yet nothing happens, and at other times the ocean is flat but a crisis hits out of the blue sky. Rother appears to sympathize with Kindleberger's beautiful 'one knows a financial crisis when it happens' but he is up to more, indeed much more. Convinced that in addition to economic fundamentals politics play a decisive role in the evolution of currency crises he sets out to develop and then to test a political-economy model of a crisis predictor that may serve as an early warning system'. Michael Braulke, Professor of Economics, Universität Osnabrück, Germany. Show Less