The dollar has been the dominant currency of the world economy for almost a century; since 2002, the euro has gained widespread international acceptance resulting in important institutional, economic and financial changes both for the euro zone, the United States and the world economies, affecting foreign exchange and financial markets as well as economic activities around the world. In years to come, the international role of the euro will hinge on the validity of the fundamental idea underlying its creation, namely that important components of sovereignty can be pooled and shared among nations in the pursuit of common economic and political objectives. This key book assesses the international role of the euro, discusses its impact on global financial markets, shifting global exchange rate relationships and their implications. With input from various disciplines (economics, business and political science), it foments discussions intended to facilitate an exchange of ideas among academics, practitioners and the local business community.

Can the euro challenge the supremacy of the U.S. dollar as a global currency? From the time Europe’s joint money was born, many have predicted that it would soon achieve parity with the dollar or possibly even surpass it. In reality, however, the euro has remained firmly planted in the dollar’s shadow. The essays collected in this volume explain why. Because of America’s external deficits and looming foreign debt, the dollar can never be as dominant as it once was. But Europe’s money is unable to mount an effective challenge. The euro suffers from a number of critical structural deficiencies, including an anti-growth bias that is built into the institutions of the monetary union and an ambiguous governance structure that sows doubts among prospective users. As recent events have demonstrated, members of the euro zone remain vulnerable to financial crisis. Moreover, lacking a single voice, the bloc continues to punch below its weight in monetary diplomacy. The world seems headed toward a leaderless monetary order, with several currencies in contention but none clearly dominant. This collection distils the views of one of the world’s leading scholars in global currency, and will be of considerable interest to students and scholars of international finance and international political economy.

This book analyses how financial elites in key dollar-holding emerging markets perceive the contest between the euro and the dollar for global currency status. It also assesses how far the Eurozone has gone in challenging US hegemony in monetary affairs through the prism of these elites. Drawing on Chartalist and Constructivist theories of money, the author provides a systematic approach to studying global currency dynamics and presents extensive original empirical data on financial elites in China, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Brazil. The author demonstrates, amongst other things, how the gradual ascendance of a structurally flawed currency like the euro has highlighted the weaknesses of the dollar ad how the euro has demonstrated that sovereignty sharing in monetary affairs is possible and that the international monetary system can be a multicurrency and multilateral system. In this highly innovative and important book, Otero-Iglesias shows the importance of studying financial elites in Brazil, China and the GCC countries in order to understand the full impact, material and ideational, of the euro in the transformation of the IMS. It will be vital reading for students and scholars of International Political Economy, International Economics, International Finance, Economic History, Economic Sociology, International Relations, Comparative Political Economy and Comparative Politics.

As a long-run competitor and collaborator with the dollar, the euro creates the potential for a bipolar international monetary system, offering unprecedented challenges and opportunities to economic policymakers. This book explores the euro's international role, its record till its fifth year, and its future.

Why the dollar is—and will remain—the dominant global currency The U.S. dollar's dominance seems under threat. The near collapse of the U.S. financial system in 2008–2009, political paralysis that has blocked effective policymaking, and emerging competitors such as the Chinese renminbi have heightened speculation about the dollar’s looming displacement as the main reserve currency. Yet, as The Dollar Trap powerfully argues, the financial crisis, a dysfunctional international monetary system, and U.S. policies have paradoxically strengthened the dollar’s importance. Eswar Prasad examines how the dollar came to have a central role in the world economy and demonstrates that it will remain the cornerstone of global finance for the foreseeable future. Marshaling a range of arguments and data, and drawing on the latest research, Prasad shows why it will be difficult to dislodge the dollar-centric system. With vast amounts of foreign financial capital locked up in dollar assets, including U.S. government securities, other countries now have a strong incentive to prevent a dollar crash. Prasad takes the reader through key contemporary issues in international finance—including the growing economic influence of emerging markets, the currency wars, the complexities of the China-U.S. relationship, and the role of institutions like the International Monetary Fund—and offers new ideas for fixing the flawed monetary system. Readers are also given a rare look into some of the intrigue and backdoor scheming in the corridors of international finance. The Dollar Trap offers a panoramic analysis of the fragile state of global finance and makes a compelling case that, despite all its flaws, the dollar will remain the ultimate safe-haven currency.

It is, as a critic of U.S.

We document that the U.S. dollar exchange rate drives global trade prices and volumes. Using a newly constructed data set of bilateral price and volume indices for more than 2,500 country pairs, we establish the following facts: 1) The dollar exchange rate quantitatively dominates the bilateral exchange rate in price pass-through and trade elasticity regressions. U.S. monetary policy induced dollar fluctuations have high pass-through into bilateral import prices. 2) Bilateral non-commodities terms of trade are essentially uncorrelated with bilateral exchange rates. 3) The strength of the U.S. dollar is a key predictor of rest-of-world aggregate trade volume and consumer/producer price inflation. A 1 percent U.S. dollar appreciation against all other currencies in the world predicts a 0.6–0.8 percent decline within a year in the volume of total trade between countries in the rest of the world, controlling for the global business cycle. 4) Using a novel Bayesian semiparametric hierarchical panel data model, we estimate that the importing country’s share of imports invoiced in dollars explains 15 percent of the variance of dollar pass-through/elasticity across country pairs. Our findings strongly support the dominant currency paradigm as opposed to the traditional Mundell-Fleming pricing paradigms.

A powerful new understanding of global currency trends, including the rise of the Chinese yuan At first glance, the history of the modern global economy seems to support the long-held view that the currency of the world’s leading power invariably dominates international trade and finance. But in How Global Currencies Work, three noted economists overturn this conventional wisdom. Offering a new history of global finance over the past two centuries and marshaling extensive new data to test current theories of how global currencies work, the authors show that several national monies can share international currency status—and that their importance can change rapidly. They demonstrate how changes in technology and international trade and finance have reshaped the landscape of international currencies so that several international financial standards can coexist. In fact, they show that multiple international and reserve currencies have coexisted in the past—upending the traditional view of the British pound’s dominance before 1945 and the U.S. dollar’s postwar dominance. Looking forward, the book tackles the implications of this new framework for major questions facing the future of the international monetary system, including how increased currency competition might affect global financial stability.

This book explains how the US dollar serves as the primary reserve currency for the international financial system and assesses its prospects for the future. The book provides an analysis of the main factors that have given rise to the global currency power of the dollar and the key benefits that have accrued to both the United States and other countries from this arrangement. It then considers the growing costs that can be associated with the dollar-centered reserve system and the prospects for the medium-term in terms of its potential threats to global financial stability. In the light of these considerations, the book examines three alternative currency arrangements that could address some or all of the defects associated with the global currency power of the dollar. These include a shift to a multi-reserve currency system, an enhancement of the IMF’s role as an international lender of last resort and provider of global “safe” assets, and the introduction of central bank digital currencies. "A cogent, persuasive and timely look at the dollar's power." Kirkus Reviews