Author: David Birch – Consult Hyperion
Technology is changing money and this book looks at where it might be taking us. Technology has transformed money from physical objects to intangible information. With the arrival of smart cards, mobile phones and Bitcoin it has become easier than ever to create new forms of money. Crucially, money is also inextricably connected with our identities. Your card or phone is a security device that can identify you – and link information about you to your money.
Marvellous. A deeply researched and brilliant synthesis of history, technology and futurology, and a worthy follow-up to Birch’s pioneering 2014 book on identity as the new money.”
Kenneth Rogoff – Harvard University
Currency Conflict and Trade Policy – A New Strategy for the United States
Authors: C. Fred Bergsten and Joseph E. Gagnon – Peterson Institute for International Economics
Conflicts over currency valuations are a recurrent feature of the modern global economy. To strengthen their international competitiveness, many countries resort to buying foreign currencies to make their exports cheaper and their imports more expensive. In the first decade of the 21st century, for example, China’s currency manipulation practices were so flagrant that they produced a backlash in the United States and other trading partners, prompting threats of retaliation. How damaging is the practice of currency manipulation—and how extensive is the problem? This book by C. Fred Bergsten and Joseph E. Gagnon—two leading experts on trade, investment, and the effects of currency manipulation—traces the history, causes, and effects of currency manipulation and analyzes a range of policy responses that the United States could adopt. The book is an indispensable guide to a complex and serious problem and what might be done to solve it.
Central Banks into the Breach – From Triumph to Crisis and the Road Ahead
Author: Pierre L. Siklos – Wilfrid Laurier University
As a result of the financial crisis, central banks stepped into the breach to provide services other institutions were unwilling or unable to carry out. In doing so, the responsibilities for governing monetary policy and financial system stability became more elastic without due consideration for the appropriateness of the division of responsibilities. Central banks no longer influence just prices they also change financial system quantities. This leads to rising policy uncertainty.
“The story of the role of central banks over the last decade is fascinating, and Pierre Siklos is very well placed to tell it. His great strengths are that he understands the important links between politics and central bank operations, and he gives a proper emphasis to the important development of the macro-prudential pillar of monetary policy.”
C.A.E. Goodhart – London School of Economics
