Since the Second World War, the US dollar has been the world's sole international reserve currency, giving it, in the words of one critic, 'exorbitant privilege'. But in the wake of the worldwide financial crisis, will other currencies overtake it? And what impact would that have? Eichengreen explains the history and assesses what may come.

For dozens of developing countries, the financial upheavals of the 1980s have set back economic development by a decade or more. Poverty in those countries have intensified as they struggle under the burden of an enormous external debt. In 1988, more than six years after the onset of the crisis, almost all the debtor countries were still unable to borrow in the international capital markets on normal terms. Moreover, the world financial system has been disrupted by the prospect of widespread defaults on those debts. Because of the urgency of the present crisis, and because similar crises have recurred intermittently for at least 175 years, it is important to understand the fundamental features of the international macroeconomy and global financial markets that have contributed to this repeated instability. Developing Country Debt and the World Economy contains nontechnical versions of papers prepared under the auspices of the project on developing country debt, sponsored by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The project focuses on the middle-income developing countries, particularly those in Latin America and East Asia, although many lessons of the study should apply as well to other, poorer debtor countries. The contributors analyze the crisis from two perspectives, that of the international financial system as a whole and that of individual debtor countries. Studies of eight countries—Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, the Philippines, South Korea, and Turkey—explore the question of why some countries succumbed to serious financial crises while other did not. Each study was prepared by a team of two authors—a U.S.-based research and an economist from the country under study. An additional eight papers approach the problem of developing country debt from a global or "systemic" perspective. The topics they cover include the history of international sovereign lending and previous debt crises, the political factors that contribute to poor economic policies in many debtor nations, the role of commercial banks and the International Monetary Fund during the current crisis, the links between debt in developing countries and economic policies in the industrialized nations, and possible new approaches to the global management of the crisis.

Our financial crisis: what happened, how we got here, and what needs to be done Henry Kaufman-an esteemed economist and statesman-is one of the most preeminent financial figures of the day, with a history of success from the 1980s, when his firm, Salomon Brothers, ruled the bond markets. In The Road to Financial Reformation , Dr. Kaufman, who has spent a lifetime entrenched in the world of finance, provides an insightful account of the history and impact of post-World War II financial markets on the economy-what happened, how we got to where we are today, and what needs to be done. Drawing on his vast breadth of knowledge and experience, Kaufman reveals the mistakes that got us into this debacle, the consequences-as they have not been fully realized-and how to put our derailed economy back on track. This book details Dr. Kaufman's warnings and concerns expressed repeatedly throughout the last quarter century, and shows that what he predicted came to pass. Provides an insightful account of the history and impact of post-World War II financial markets on the economy Explores the erosion of credit ratings on corporate debt in the late 1980s and the rapid increase in financial concentration of institutions Discusses the blinding faith in models that rely on historical data but fail to take into account economic and financial market structural changes With his breadth of knowledge and experience, Kaufman details that this crisis was foreseeable (he saw it coming), and how we created this history-making financial crisis. He also explains the consequences still to come, and presents solutions on how we can recover and reform the markets.

"This book will come to be known as the one that challenged the old, winner-takes-all view of international currency competition and established the new view. Barry Eichengreen and his coauthors present thorough and telling evidence that the historical reality is that multiple currencies play consequential roles in international trade and finance--and that lock-in effects and persistence are not as strong as traditionally assumed. In short, this is a must-read for all economists interested in international macroeconomics and finance." --Richard Baldwin, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva "Barry Eichengreen, our pre-eminent international monetary historian, and his coauthors have written a great book around the central theme that there have almost always been multiple rival international currencies and that the advantages of being the world's lead currency are not as marked as traditionally argued. The book is lucidly written, eschewing mathematical technicalities, though the background scholarship is deeply impressive. It should be read by everyone interested in the monetary history of the past two centuries." --Charles Goodhart, London School of Economics and Political Science "This eloquent and learned book will become the standard--perhaps one should say the gold standard--for discussions of international currency regimes, and for the analysis of the uncertainties that accompany changing global leadership." --Harold James, Princeton University "The authors put the plural back into global currencies, for good reason. As their historical but highly topical research establishes, there can be more than one global (or 'reserve') currency at any one time, as has often been the case in the modern world. This is an important corrective to the recurring oversold yen then euro then yuan will rival the dollar litany. But it is also a reminder that there is more to a stable global financial system than how many currencies there are, but how the leaders of those currencies take responsibility and interact." Adam S. Posen, President, Peterson Institute for International Economics "Drawing on new data, this book provides a rich contextual and historical analysis of reserve currencies in the global economy. This is very welcome, indeed." --Sebastian Edwards, University of California, Los Angeles

Why the current Bretton Woods-like international financial system, featuring large current account deficits in the center country, the United States, and massive reserve accumulation by the periphery, is not sustainable. In Global Imbalances and the Lessons of Bretton Woods , Barry Eichengreen takes issue with the argument that today's international financial system is largely analogous to the Bretton Woods System of the period 1958 to 1973. Then, as now, it has been argued, the United States ran balance of payment deficits, provided international reserves to other countries, and acted as export market of last resort for the rest of the world. Then, as now, the story continues, other countries were reluctant to revalue their currencies for fear of seeing their export-led growth slow and suffering capital losses on their foreign reserves. Eichengreen argues in response that the power of historical analogy lies not just in finding parallels but in highlighting differences, and he finds important differences in the structure of the world economy today. Such differences, he concludes, mean that the current constellation of exchange rates and payments imbalances is unlikely to last as long as the original Bretton Woods System. Two of the most salient differences are the twin deficits and low savings rate of the United States, which do not augur well for the sustainability of the country's international position. Such differences, he concludes, mean that the current constellation of exchange rates and payments imbalances is unlikely to last as long as the original Bretton Woods System. After identifying these differences, Eichengreen looks in detail at the Gold Pool, the mechanism through which European central banks sought to support the dollar in the 1960s. He shows that the Pool was fragile and short lived, which does not bode well for collective efforts on the part of Asian central banks to restrain reserve diversification and support the dollar today. He studies Japan's exit from its dollar peg in 1971, drawing lessons for China's transition to greater exchange rate flexibility. And he considers the history of reserve currency competition, asking if it has lessons for whether the dollar is destined to lose its standing as preeminent international currency to the euro or even the Chinese renminbi.