The Unloved Dollar Standard

Th world dollar standard greatly facilitates international exchange. Since the Bretton Woods Agreement of 1945, the dollar has been the key currency for clearing international payments among banks, including government interventions to set exchange rates. IT is the dominant currency for invoicing trade in primary commodities and official exchange reserves.

The two most topical issues in current financial markets deal with the causes of the recent financial crisis and the means to prevent future crises. This book addresses the latter and stresses a major shift in most countries toward a better understanding of financial stability and how it can be achieved. In particular, the papers in this volume examine the recent change in emphasis at central banks with regard to financial stability. For example: What were the cross-country differences in emphasis on financial stability in the past Did these differences appear to affect the extent of the adverse impact of the financial crisis on individual countries What are perceived to be the major future threats to financial stability These and related issues are discussed in the book by well-known experts in the field OCo some of the best minds in the world pursuing financial stability. Following the global financial crisis, significant reforms have been initiated in many countries to address financial stability more directly, frequently focusing on macroprudential policy frameworks in which central banks play a more active role."

The two most topical issues in current financial markets deal with the causes of the recent financial crisis and the means to prevent future crises. This book addresses the latter and stresses a major shift in most countries toward a better understanding of financial stability and how it can be achieved. In particular, the papers in this volume examine the recent change in emphasis at central banks with regard to financial stability. For example: What were the cross-country differences in emphasis on financial stability in the past? Did these differences appear to affect the extent of the adverse impact of the financial crisis on individual countries? What are perceived to be the major future threats to financial stability? These and related issues are discussed in the book by well-known experts in the field — some of the best minds in the world pursuing financial stability. Following the global financial crisis, significant reforms have been initiated in many countries to address financial stability more directly, frequently focusing on macroprudential policy frameworks in which central banks play a more active role. Contents:Special Addresses:The (Changing) Role of Central Banks in Financial Stability Policies (Peter Praet)The Role of Central Banks in Financial Stability: How Has It Changed? (Willem H Buiter)Pursuing Financial Stability at the Federal Reserve (Janet L Yellen)The Role of Central Banks in Financial Stability: Historical Review and Critique:Financial Stability: Lessons Learned from the Recent Crisis and Implications for the Federal Reserve (Nellie Liang)Role of Central Banks in Financial Stability: Lessons from the Experience of the Bank of Japan (Takeo Hoshi)Overcoming the Fear of Free Falling: Monetary Policy Graduation in Emerging Markets (Carlos A Vegh and Guillermo Vuletin)Can We Identify the Financial Cycle? (Mathias Drehmann, Claudio Borio and Kostas Tsatsaronis)Central Banks and Asset Price Bubbles:Low Interest Rates and Housing Bubbles: Still No Smoking Gun (Kenneth N Kuttner)Classic FIT and Lean FIT: Is Inflation-Targeting Guilty of Causing the Financial Instability of 2007–2009? (Takatoshi Ito)Current, Past, and Potential Future Threats to Financial Stability:Bank Capital Regulations: Learning the Right Lessons from the Crisis (Asli Demirgüç-Kunt)International Monetary Reform: Exchange Rates or Interest Rates? (Ronald McKinnon)Threats to Financial Stability in Emerging Markets: The New and Very Active Role of Central Banks (Liliana Rojas-Suarez)The Social Productivity of the Financial Sector:In Defense of Wall Street: The Social Productivity of the Financial System (Ross Levine)Output Growth Variability: The Role of Financial Markets (Alexander Popov)Occupying the Wrong Street? The Social Productivity of the Financial Sector: Some Comments (Gerard Caprio, Jr.)Open Issues in the Regulatory Debate: Failure Resolutions, Bailouts, Moral Hazard, and Market Discipline:Bankers and Brokers First: Loose Ends in the Theory of Central Bank Policymaking (Edward J Kane)The Elusive Scale Economies of the Largest Banks and Their Implications for Global Competitiveness (Joseph P Hughes)The Ex Ante versus Ex Post Effect of Public Guarantees (Evren Damar, Reint Gropp and Adi Mordel)Real and Imaginary Resolution Options for Large Financial Institutions (David A Skeel, Jr.)Policy Panel: Where to from Here?:Is Our Economy's Financial Sector Worth What It Costs Us? (Benjamin M Friedman)The Eurozone Crisis: Causes, Remedy, and Misperceptions (Richard C Koo)Macroprudential and Monetary Policies (Frederic S Mishkin)The Eurozone Crisis (Richard Portes)The Way Forward — Central Banks with Financial Stability Mandates: The Case of the Eurosystem (Anne Sibert) Readership: Undergraduate/graduate students, researchers, and academics in international finance and banking; financial regulators, financiers, and bankers. Keywords:Financial Stability;Financial Regulation;Macroprudential Regulation;Systemic Risk;Dodd-Frank;Financial CrisisKey Features:Examines the changing role of central banks with regard to financial stability. This includes regulatory reform across a number of countriesContributors include representatives of central banks, regulatory and supervisory agencies, financial institutions, trade associations, and academic institutions from around the globe

This book renews the Marxian theory of the general equivalent by highlighting the contradiction between the social functions of money (unit of account, means of circulation) and its private functions (store of value, accumulation). It draws a clear distinction between the monetary base and the commodity base of money and thus avoids the confusion between money and credit on the one hand, and money and capital on the other, which are found in other heterodox monetary theories. It accounts for the new forms of monetary constraints weighing on the banking systems under and inconvertible fiat money standard, the class relationships underlying the interventions of monetary authorities and governments, and presents a definition of the state which emphasises its mode of intervention on the collective and social conditions of capitalisms which are money and labour power. The emphasis on the contradiction between these two types of monetary functions gives a more fundamental account of the conflict between the international role and the national origin of the dollar than the Triffin dilemma, which has been constantly overcome or deferred by the US since 1960. The author explains this evolution by demonstrating how, from the 1950s onwards, the dollar began a process of acquiring relative autonomy from the US economy. By focusing on the role and international functions of the dollar, he offers a fresh look at the 2008 crisis and its consequences for the international monetary system, but also for a possible post-capitalist financial system – which post-revolutionary Russia experimented with in the form of the NEP, and whose contemporary implementation is foreshadowed by the rise of digital central bank currencies. The book thereby provides a necessary update to the tools and concepts inherited from Marx for analysing and understanding money, capital and the state.

This book is about power in a changing world economy. Though power is ubiquitous in the study of International Political Economy, the concept is underdeveloped in formal theoretical terms. This collection of essays analyses recent experience in East Asia to advance our theoretic understanding of state power in IPE. Over the last quarter century, no other region of the world has had a greater impact on the global distribution of economic resources and capabilities. China, with its "peaceful rise," now stands as the second largest national economy on the face of the earth; South Korea and Taiwan have become industrial powerhouses; Hong Kong and Singapore are among the world’s most important financial centres; and new poles of growth have emerged in several southeast Asian countries – all while Japan, long the region’s dominant market, has slipped into seemingly irreversible decline. The volume’s nine essays, contributed by leading scholars in the United States, Britain and Taiwan, aim to extract relevant inferences and insights from these developments for the study of state power. All are framed by a core agenda encompassing four key clusters of questions concerning the meaning, sources, uses, and limits of power. These essays ask: What new lessons are offered for power analysis in International Political Economy?

In the wake of World War II, a number of institutions designed to promote a liberal global economic and geopolitical order were established—the International Monetary Fund, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (forerunner of the World Trade Organization), and the World Bank in the economic sphere, and the United Nations in the geopolitical realm. Although these organizations were far from perfect, their actions promoted rising living standards and political freedoms for all. Liberalism thus reengineered represented a fundamental bet on the supremacy of democracy and the market economy, and spurred the transformation of North America, Western Europe, and Japan into prosperous societies, each with a large and vibrant middle class and a social safety net. Now, however, this liberal geopolitical and economic order is under attack. The free movement of goods, services, money, people, and information that once formed the recipe for progress under liberalism is blamed by many for rising inequality, mass migrations, and the declining legitimacy of political parties, as well as the fragmentation of global superpower relations. Nationalism, xenophobia, and populism continue to advance at the right and left ends of the political spectrum, eroding the moderate middle ground. In Rude Awakening, Mauro F. Guillén argues for an improved international arrangement to provide for stability and prosperity. He offers key considerations that a reinvented global liberal order must address—from finding a balance between markets and governments to confronting present realities, such as rapid technological change and social inequality, to recognizing that Europe and the United States can no longer attempt by themselves to steer the global economy. Rude Awakening affirms the potential of liberalism still to provide a flexible framework for governments, businesses, workers, and citizens to explore and make necessary compromises and coalitions for a better future.

At any given time, a limited number of national currencies are used as instruments of international commerce, to settle foreign trade transactions or store value for investors and central banks. How countries whose currencies gain international appeal choose to use this status forms their strategy of currency statecraft. In different circumstances, issuing governments may welcome and promote the internationalization of their currency, tolerate it, or actively oppose it. Benjamin J. Cohen offers a provocative explanation of the strategic policy choices at play. In a comprehensive review that ranges from World War II to the present, Cohen convincingly argues that one goal stands out as the primary motivation for currency statecraft: the extent of a country’s geopolitical ambition, or how driven it is to build or sustain a prominent place in the international community. When a currency becomes internationalized, it generally increases the power of the nation that produces it. In the persistent contestation that characterizes global politics, that extra edge can matter greatly, making monetary rivalry an integral component of geopolitics. Today, the major example of monetary rivalry is the emerging confrontation between the US dollar and the Chinese renminbi. Cohen describes how China has vigorously promoted the international standing of its currency in recent years, even at the risk of exacerbating relations with the United States, and explains how the outcome could play a major role in shaping the broader geopolitical engagement between the two superpowers.

Applying the lessons of presidential history, this anthology of case studies—written by leading political scientists, historians, and subject matter experts—delves into the many facets of the presidency and promotes a greater understanding of the presidency for policymakers, academics, students, and general readers alike. Abraham Lincoln once said, "Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history." One hundred and fifty years later, this statement remains true: the lessons of history are increasingly important at a time of political deadlock and growing skepticism of leadership among the American public. An established classic in its field, Triumphs and Tragedies of the Modern Presidency underscores the importance of looking back to set an intelligent course for the future and promotes a better understanding of the U.S. presidency. This updated and revised second edition offers rare insights on presidential leadership since 2001 and adds considerable new information related to inter-term transitions. The case studies in this single-volume work cover an unparalleled scope of "modern presidential history" and related topics, beginning with the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt and continuing to the presidency of Barack Obama. Examples of the events and subject matter of the case studies include the interstate transport system, the building of the social safety net, the civil rights movement, the space program, environmental protection, education reform, the IT revolution, energy policy, the budget, economic policy, foreign policy, national security, defense policy, and presidential scandals. Each case study highlights a historical lesson and is authored by a different political scientist, historian, or subject matter expert, offering readers a multidisciplinary examination of the presidency.