在他发表于《美国经济评论 》 （ American Economic Review）的雄文《最优货币区理论 》 （ A Theory of Optimum Currency Areas）中，蒙代尔指出，只要工人能在货币区内自由流动追逐工作，该货币区就可以形成一个汇率调整的均衡机制。
In his provocative American Economic Review paper “A Theory of Optimum Currency Areas,” Mundell argued that as long as workers could move within a currency region to where the jobs were, the region could afford to forgo the equilibrating mechanism of exchange-rate adjustment.