This paper focuses on the developing countries, which accounted for nearly half the value of those surpluses, were apparently unable to find sufficiently profitable investments at home that overcame market and political risk. The United States a decade ago likely could not have run up today’s near $800 billion annual deficit for the simple reason that we could not have attracted the foreign savings to finance it. In 1995, for example, total cross-border saving was less than $300 billion. The long-term updrift in this broader swath of unconsolidated deficits and mostly offsetting surpluses of economic entities has been persistent but gradual for decades, probably generations. However, the component of that broad set that captures only the net foreign financing of the imbalances of the individual US economic entities, our current account deficit, increased from negligible in the early 1990s to 6.2 percent of our GDP by 2006.

Like all of us, though few so visibly, Alan Greenspan was forced by the financial crisis of 2008 to question some fundamental assumptions about risk management and economic forecasting. No one with any meaningful role in economic decision making in the world saw beforehand the storm for what it was. How had our models so utterly failed us? To answer this question, Alan Greenspan embarked on a rigorous and far-reaching multiyear examination of how Homo economicus predicts the economic future, and how it can predict it better. Economic risk is a fact of life in every realm, from home to business to government at all levels. Whether we’re conscious of it or not, we make wagers on the future virtually every day, one way or another. Very often, however, we’re steering by out-of-date maps, when we’re not driven by factors entirely beyond our conscious control. The Map and the Territory is nothing less than an effort to update our forecasting conceptual grid. It integrates the history of economic prediction, the new work of behavioral economists, and the fruits of the author’s own remarkable career to offer a thrillingly lucid and empirically based grounding in what we can know about economic forecasting and what we can’t.The book explores how culture is and isn't destiny and probes what we can predict about the world's biggest looming challenges, from debt and the reform of the welfare state to natural disasters in an age of global warming. No map is the territory, but Greenspan’s approach, grounded in his trademark rigor, wisdom, and unprecedented context, ensures that this particular map will assist in safe journeys down many different roads, traveled by individuals, businesses, and the state.

An upbeat antidote to the gloom and doom forecasts of the financial future Just about everyone is worried about the economy and markets. And the fear is that they will stay down for a long time. But a few brave voices say that the gloom and doom forecasts are just too pessimistic. Reality is that entrepreneurs don't give up. History is pretty clear, every time the economy is thought to be done, worn out, finished, it bounces back and heads to new highs. In fact, the economy and the markets-counter to conventional wisdom-have started to improve in the first half of 2009. Even housing is showing some signs of life. With It's Not as Bad as You Think, Brian Wesbury, ranked as one of the top economic forecasters by the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, shows you that while the financial future may be hard to predict, it will ultimately be profitable over the long haul. In this easy-to-follow and engaging forecast of the future, Wesbury takes a look at the good, the bad, and the ugly-and debunks the pouting pundits of pessimism to show you how to prosper now and in the future. An optimistic look at the economy and the markets written by one of today's foremost financial forecasters Presents a roadmap to seek opportunities in all the panic Shows you how to analyze economic indicators and government policy to grow your wealth so you don't lose by hiding under the bed A breath of fresh air, Wesbury's objectivity and optimism provide welcome relief to the daily bad news stories, as he sets us all up to capitalize on tomorrow's great possibilities.

The choices we make in advance of the next financial crisis will have a major impact in determining the magnitude of the economic damage. Our vulnerability to crisis depends on the strength of the protections we build into the financial system through prudential regulation, as well as on the degrees of freedom we create for ourselves to respond to the unanticipated, and the knowledge and experience we bring in managing crises. Is the financial system safer today? With the reforms now in place and with the memory of the crisis still fresh, how confident should we feel about the resilience of the financial system and our ability to protect the US economy from a major financial crisis? Warburg Pincus President and former US Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner attempts to answer these questions in his October 2016 Per Jacobsson Lecture.

Crafting stimulus packages and financial bailouts to address immediate problems has for many reasons been a priority for policymakers. In this Council Special Report, however, Steven Dunaway argues that policymakers must go beyond these steps and tackle one of the root causes of today's crisis: imbalances between savings and investment in major countries. The report analyzes the nature of these imbalances, which occur when some countries, such as the United States, run large current account (essentially trade) deficits while others, such as China, maintain large surpluses. Dunaway identifies three features of the international financial system that have allowed the imbalances to persist, features that involve both floating and managed exchange rates as well as the issuance of reserve assets. In particular, he notes that the United States' status as an issuer of such assets has enabled it to finance a current account deficit. The report then prescribes a variety of steps to address global imbalances. Beyond stimulus packages around the world, it urges measures to raise savings (principally government savings) in the United States, reform labor and product markets in Europe and Japan to increase competition and flexibility, and boost domestic consumption in China. Finally, the report advocates improving International Monetary Fund (IMF) surveillance of member states' economic policies by reducing the role of the Fund's executive board and depoliticizing the selection of its senior management.

The future of finance, and in particular saving it from a popular backlash against the global financial crisis and related crisis management policies, has become a matter of great concern. In this brochure, which presents in written form a lecture from the Per Jacobsson Foundation’s lecture series, former Reserve Bank of India Governor Y. V. Reddy explores three interrelated issues of particular concern to central bankers in the search for good finance for the future: how to ensure that the financial sector serves the society better, how to integrate financial sector policies better with national economic policies, and how to ensure that the financial industry functions as a means and not as an end in itself. The question-and-answer session following the lecture is also included in the brochure.

As the Federal Reserve’s statutory objectives are defined as specific goals for the U.S. economy—to pursue maximum sustainable employment and price stability—and its policy decisions are targeted to achieve these dual objectives, there might seem to be little need for its policymakers to pay attention to developments outside the United States. But such an inference would be incorrect: the state of the U.S. economy is significantly affected by the state of the world economy, and of course, actions taken by the Federal Reserve influence economic conditions abroad, which in turn spill back on the evolution of the U.S. economy and therefore must be taken into account in the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy choices. This Per Jacobsson Lecture first reviews the effect of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policies on the rest of the global economy, particularly emerging market economies. It then addresses prospective outcomes and possible risks associated with the normalization of the Federal Reserve’s policies. Finally, it discusses the Federal Reserve’s responsibilities in the world economy.

Since the grave disruption of the subprime market at the start of the global financial crisis triggered major turbulences in the functioning of money markets in all large advanced economies, central bankers have experienced extraordinarily demanding and difficult times, characterized by a succession of shocks unseen, in the advanced economies, since World War II. Given the structurally very different economies that central banks were dealing with, one could have expected that the shock of the crisis would have accentuated their differences and given rise to an even more diverse setof central bank policies, conceptual references, and measures in a selfish, inward-looking mode. Instead, however, a phenomenon of “practical and conceptual rapprochement” took place between central banks, amidst the economic and financial turmoil, with the closest central bank cooperation ever, as symbolically illustrated by the coordinated decrease of interest rates in October 2008. The crisis also started or accelerated a multidimensional process of convergence of key elements of monetary policy thinking and policymaking—“conceptual convergence”—that is far from being achieved, but calls for great attention from both academia and policymakers. This Per Jacobsson Lecture concentrates on this convergence process, reflecting as well on some theoretical and practical issues that are associated with unconventional monetary policy liquidity and quantitative measures and the forward guidance generalization, themselves part of the conceptual convergence phenomenon.

Completely revised and updated to include the ongoing financial crisis and the Obama administration's programs to combat it, this is the best available introductory textbook for an undergraduate course on Financial Markets and Institutions. It provides balanced coverage of theories, policies, and institutions in a conversational style that avoids complex models and mathematics, making it a student-friendly text with many unique teaching features. Financial crises, global competition, deregulation, technological innovation, and growing government oversight have significantly changed financial markets and institutions. The new edition of this text is designed to capture the ongoing changes, and to present an analytical framework that enables students to understand and anticipate changes in the financial system and accompanying changes in markets and institutions. The text includes Learning Objectives and end-of-chapter Key Words and Questions, and an online Instructor's Manual is available to adopters.

The current account deficit of the United States is more than six percent of its gross domestic product—an all-time high. And the rest of the world, including other G7 countries such as Japan and Germany, must collectively run current account surpluses to finance this deficit. How long can such unevenness between imports and exports be sustained, and what form might their eventual reconciliation take? Putting forth scenarios ranging from a gradual correction to a crash landing for the dollar, G7 Current Account Imbalances brings together economists from around the globe to consider the origins, status, and future of those disparities. An esteemed group of collaborators here examines the role of the bursting of the dot-com bubble, the history of previous episodes of current account adjustments, and the possibility of the Euro surpassing the dollar as the leading international reserve currency. Though there are areas of broad agreement—that the imbalances will ultimately decline and that currency revaluations will be part of the solution—many areas of contention remain regarding both the dangers of imbalances and the possible forms of adjustment. This volume will be of tremendous value to economists, politicians, and business leaders alike as they look to the future of the G7 economies.