Capital Flows and Crises

A 2,500-year history of international currencies that reveals new insights about the future of the U.S. dollar—as well as crypto and central bank digital currencies<BR><BR>Doubts about the international dominance of the dollar are only growing amid worries about tariffs, political dysfunction, and fraying international alliances. Will the dollar continue to reign supreme? In Money Beyond Borders, the leading authority on international currencies, Barry Eichengreen, puts the dollar’s prospects in deep historical perspective by chronicling the entire history of cross-border currencies, from the invention of coins in the seventh century BCE to the cryptocurrencies of today and the central bank digital currencies of tomorrow.<BR><BR>Money Beyond Borders recounts how Greek and Roman coins became the first true international currencies. It tells how the Florentine gold florin became the “greenback of the Renaissance,” and how it was succeeded by Spanish silver and a Dutch fiat currency. The book explains why the British pound dominated the international economy in the nineteenth century, why the dollar rose to the top during World War II, and why the dollar has survived predictions of the imminent loss of its preeminence since the 1970s.<BR><BR>The long history of international currencies shows that the same factors that encourage their widespread use eventually lead to their abandonment. Money Beyond Borders makes a powerful case that the dollar is now on the downside of this cycle, and it considers who the winners and losers will be when there is flight away from the greenback. Revealing important patterns in the life cycles of international currencies over the past 2,500 years, the book offers valuable lessons and insights about how currencies rise—and why they fall.

In this accessible book, a leading expert provides a critical assessment of the official sector's efforts to more effectively manage financial crises in emerging markets. Professor Eichengreen reviews international initiatives on both the crisis prevention and crisis resolution fronts. While crises will always be with us, he concludes that good progress has been made in limiting their spread and strengthening the international financial system. Ironically, however, official-sector initiatives in this area may in fact have made life more difficult for the poorest countries. Initiatives to limit the incidence of crises and threats to the stability of the international financial system should therefore be linked to an increase in development assistance designed to offset the extra burdens on the poorest countries. The other place where official efforts have fallen short is in creating new ways of resolving crises. The author argues that the old way-official sector financing through the International Monetary Fund-is part of the problem, not part of the solution. The Fund's financial operations allow investors to escape without significant losses, which in turn encourages them to lend without regard to the risks, weakening market discipline. Moreover, bailouts are inequitable. Because investors are allowed to exit and the IMF ultimately gets paid back, the residents of the crisis country end up footing the bill. This is one reason why IMF programs have come to be regarded with such animus in the developing world.Imagining that the solution is for the official community to simply show the resolve to resist bailouts is too easy. That the International Monetary Fund has repeatedly come under pressure to extend financial assistance reflects more than a lack of political will; it reflects the inadequacy of the alternatives. At the same time, seeking to create radical new alternatives like an international bankruptcy court is too hard. It would do more to increase the efficiency of resource allocation and the stability of financial markets, the author concludes, to concentrate on more modest changes, namely the introduction of restructuring-friendly provisions into loan agreements, enhancing the capacity of creditors and debtors to resolve debt problems on their own.