Finanza internazionale e distribuzione del reddito

Our purpose is to reconsider Vicarelli's main contributions on the international financial crisis and its impact on the international distribution of income in the period from Fifties to Seventies of the last century. Vicarelli used a unifying approach that integrates four levels of analysis. First of all, a rigorous theoretical scheme supported by empirical evidence. Second, the integration between real e monetary analysis of the international exchange. Third, the short run view extended to the long run. Finally, the interrelations between flows and stocks. The main focus is concentrated on the disequilibria in the current accounts of the balance of payments, that determine a redistribution of financial wealth among surplus and deficit countries. The lack of adjustment of the international disequilibria increases in the long run the accumulation of financial assets (for surplus countries) and liabilities (for deficit countries). This is the main source on the potential instability of the international monetary and financial systems. Expectations of changes in the exchange rates, in the interest rates, in the rates of inflation bring about sudden reallocations of the stock of financial assets. The undesired result is the destabilizing impact on the exchange markets and on the real markets, as it was experienced in the multiple crisis of the Bretton Woods system during the Sixties and also in the oil crises of the Seventies. The integrated approach adopted by Fausto Vicarelli is still alive. With the due differences, we are again in presence of structural imbalances in the international payments, with the consequent accumulation of financial stocks. The potential instability of the international system is in part under control of better equipped and more independent central banks. This is a reassuring item. On the other hand we cannot forget the overwhelming role of the size of financial stocks on the size of flow disequilibria. Causes and implications of this structural change are analyzed in the second part of the paper. From this point of view the conclusions are less reassuring.