{ "title": "New Economics Books Tackle China, Wheat, Equality, and the Dollar", "publication": "IMF Blog, August 25, 2022", "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2022/08/25/new-economics-books-tackle-china-wheat-equality-and-the-dollar", "canonical": "https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2022/08/25/new-economics-books-tackle-china-wheat-equality-and-the-dollar", "overlayPath": "/en/blogs/articles/2022/08/25/new-economics-books-tackle-china-wheat-equality-and-the-dollar/index.md", "summary": "Amid war and inflation, debt and fragmentation, now may be a better time than ever to step back and consider the bigger and more enduring questions of lives and livelihoods.", "sections": [ { "heading": "Overview", "content": "- Publication date: August 25, 2022\n- Theme: A selection of recent economics books reviewed in the IMF’s Finance & Development magazine, addressing long-term questions about lives and livelihoods amid war, inflation, debt, and fragmentation.\n- Curator: Jeff Kearns" }, { "heading": "Key books and substantive findings", "content": "- A Brief History of Equality (Thomas Piketty)\n - Societies have moved toward measurable improvements in the quality of life and fairer distribution of income and assets.\n - Policy proposals include: significantly steeper income tax rates on high earners, a global wealth tax on the well-off, basic income programs, and cancellation of debts.\n\n- Oceans of Grain: How American Wheat Remade the World (Scott Reynolds Nelson)\n - Argues wheat plays a key role in the rise and fall of empires.\n - Presents a financial history emphasizing international commodity markets increasingly bound together by wheat.\n\n- The United States vs. China: The Quest for Global Economic Leadership (C. Fred Bergsten)\n - Contends the United States will inevitably have to share global economic leadership with China.\n - Rejects containment or persuading China to adopt Western views; focuses on the shape of shared leadership.\n\n- The Global Currency Power of the US Dollar: Problems and Prospects (Anthony Elson)\n - Documents the US dollar’s predominant role in the global financial system and its spillover effects for US monetary policy.\n - Traces widespread dollar use for trade and financial flows to the emergence of the United States as the world’s largest economy after World War II.\n\n- Career and Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey Toward Equity (Claudia Goldin)\n - Finds US women have made extraordinary gains in the world of work over the past century.\n - Notes most no longer need choose between having a child or a job; women’s college enrollment and graduation rates outstrip men’s; opportunities have expanded toward careers.\n\n- Three Days at Camp David: How a Secret Meeting in 1971 Transformed the Global Economy (Jeffrey E. Garten)\n - Details President Richard Nixon’s 1971 decision to close the “gold window.”\n - Chronicles how Nixon reframed the action from a mea culpa to a triumphant fresh start appealing to domestic audiences.\n\n- Harry White and the American Creed (James M. Boughton)\n - Biographical corrective highlighting Harry Dexter White’s role in creating the modern global economy and his relative lack of credit compared with John Maynard Keynes.\n\n- Cogs and Monsters: What Economics Is, and What It Should Be (Diane Coyle)\n - Examines how crises from the global financial crisis to the pandemic have fueled skepticism about capitalism and economics.\n - Diagnoses problems in the profession: entrenched networks blocking fresh ideas, an aggressive debating culture, and a lack of gender and racial diversity.\n\n- Monetary Policy in Times of Crisis: A Tale of Two Decades of the European Central Bank (Massimo Rostagno et al., ECB officials)\n - Analyzes challenges faced by the ECB in its first two crisis-prone decades and its handling of a monetary union in formation.\n - Notes behind-the-scenes early push for creation of the European Stability Mechanism, which made the (never used) Outright Monetary Transaction tool effective in resolving the euro area crisis.\n - References President Mario Draghi’s 2012 “whatever it takes” dictum addressing the existential threat to the euro.\n\n- The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution Is Transforming Currencies and Finance (Eswar Prasad)\n - Argues current digital innovations in finance may presage even more dramatic changes to money, with broad social, economic, and political implications.\n\n- Where Credit Is Due: How Africa’s Debt Can Be a Benefit, Not a Burden (Gregory Smith)\n - Proposes “borrowing with purpose”: link public borrowing to clear development strategies, improve coordination among official creditors, promote more responsible private creditor behavior, and ensure flexibility by international “umpires and architects.”\n - Devotes a chapter to China’s lending to Africa: scale, terms, nature, purposes, risks, and decades of debt relief.\n\n- Tumultuous Times: Central Banking in an Era of Crisis (Masaaki Shirakawa)\n - Recounts four decades at the Bank of Japan: economic miracle, bubble, burst, and lost decades.\n - Argues the first goal of the central bank is financial stability, even before price stability, challenging the conventional primacy of price stability for monetary policy." }, { "heading": "Cross-cutting themes and implications", "content": "- Crises as catalysts for rethinking economic institutions and policies:\n - Global financial crisis, pandemic, war, inflation, debt, and fragmentation prompt examination of long-term structures and policy responses.\n- Distribution and equity:\n - Multiple authors focus on inequality and gender equity, advocating fiscal progressivity, wealth taxes, basic income, debt cancellation, and policies that expand career opportunities for women.\n- Global leadership and currency dynamics:\n - Scholarship emphasizes evolving US-China leadership dynamics and the enduring global currency dominance of the US dollar, with historical roots and contemporary spillovers for policy.\n- Financial stability and central banking:\n - Central bank mandates and priorities are questioned; some argue for prioritizing financial stability alongside or before price stability.\n- Technological transformation of money:\n - Digital innovation could fundamentally reshape currencies and finance, with major social and political consequences.\n- Debt and development:\n - Advocacy for purposeful borrowing and creditor coordination to make debt a tool for development rather than a burden.\n\nIMF blog: New Economics Books Tackle China, Wheat, Equality, and the Dollar — August 25, 2022\n\n---\n\n\n References\n\n- A Brief History of Equality\n- Oceans of Grain: How American Wheat Remade the World\n- The United States vs. China: The Quest for Global Economic Leadership\n- The Global Currency Power of the US Dollar: Problems and Prospects\n- Career and Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey Toward Equity\n- Three Days at Camp David: How a Secret Meeting in 1971 Transformed the Global Economy\n- Harry White and the American Creed: How a Federal Bureaucrat Created the Modern Global Economy (and Failed to Get the Credit)\n- Cogs and Monsters: What Economics Is, and What It Should Be\n- Monetary Policy in Times of Crisis: A Tale of Two Decades of the European Central Bank\n- The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution Is Transforming Currencies and Finance\n- Where Credit Is Due: How Africa’s Debt Can Be a Benefit, Not a Burden\n- Tumultuous Times: Central Banking in an Era of Crisis\n\nSource: https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2022/08/25/new-economics-books-tackle-china-wheat-equality-and-the-dollar" } ], "bullets": [ "[Markdown version](/en/blogs/articles/2022/08/25/new-economics-books-tackle-china-wheat-equality-and-the-dollar/index.md)", "[Structured JSON version](/en/blogs/articles/2022/08/25/new-economics-books-tackle-china-wheat-equality-and-the-dollar/index.json)", "[Bundle manifest](/en/blogs/articles/2022/08/25/new-economics-books-tackle-china-wheat-equality-and-the-dollar/bundle-manifest.json)", "Authors: Jeff Kearns", "Published: August 25, 2022", "Publication date: August 25, 2022", "Theme: A selection of recent economics books reviewed in the IMF’s Finance & Development magazine, addressing long-term questions about lives and livelihoods amid war, inflation, debt, and fragmentation.", "Curator: Jeff Kearns", "A Brief History of Equality (Thomas Piketty)", "Oceans of Grain: How American Wheat Remade the World (Scott Reynolds Nelson)", "The United States vs. China: The Quest for Global Economic Leadership (C. Fred Bergsten)", "The Global Currency Power of the US Dollar: Problems and Prospects (Anthony Elson)", "Career and Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey Toward Equity (Claudia Goldin)", "Three Days at Camp David: How a Secret Meeting in 1971 Transformed the Global Economy (Jeffrey E. Garten)", "Harry White and the American Creed (James M. Boughton)", "Cogs and Monsters: What Economics Is, and What It Should Be (Diane Coyle)", "Monetary Policy in Times of Crisis: A Tale of Two Decades of the European Central Bank (Massimo Rostagno et al., ECB officials)", "The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution Is Transforming Currencies and Finance (Eswar Prasad)", "Where Credit Is Due: How Africa’s Debt Can Be a Benefit, Not a Burden (Gregory Smith)", "Tumultuous Times: Central Banking in an Era of Crisis (Masaaki Shirakawa)", "Crises as catalysts for rethinking economic institutions and policies:", "Distribution and equity:", "Global leadership and currency dynamics:", "Financial stability and central banking:", "Technological transformation of money:", "Debt and development:", "[A Brief History of Equality](https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2022/09/making-progress-Piketty-inequality-dabla-norris)", "[Oceans of Grain: How American Wheat Remade the World](https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2022/06/war-peace-wheat-Book-Review)", "[The United States vs. China: The Quest for Global Economic Leadership](https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2022/09/leading-the-way-book-review)", "[The Global Currency Power of the US Dollar: Problems and Prospects](https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2022/03/book-review-dollar-primacy-joyce)", "[Career and Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey Toward Equity](https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2022/03/book-review-greedy-work-donner)", "[Three Days at Camp David: How a Secret Meeting in 1971 Transformed the Global Economy](https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2021/08/book-review-three-days-at-camp-david-garten.htm)", "[Harry White and the American Creed: How a Federal Bureaucrat Created the Modern Global Economy (and Failed to Get the Credit)](https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2022/03/book-review-overshadowed-founder-ghosh)", "[Cogs and Monsters: What Economics Is, and What It Should Be](https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2021/09/book-review-cogs-and-monsters-diane-coyle)", "[Monetary Policy in Times of Crisis: A Tale of Two Decades of the European Central Bank](https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2021/09/book-review-monetary-policy-in-times-of-crisis-ECB)", "[The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution Is Transforming Currencies and Finance](https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2021/09/book-review-a-glorious-future-for-money-prasad)", "[Where Credit Is Due: How Africa’s Debt Can Be a Benefit, Not a Burden](https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2021/12/book-review-Better-Borrowing-Arora)", "[Tumultuous Times: Central Banking in an Era of Crisis](https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2021/12/book-review-Managing-Upheavals-Gaspar)" ], "alternates": { "markdown": "/en/blogs/articles/2022/08/25/new-economics-books-tackle-china-wheat-equality-and-the-dollar/index.md", "json": "/en/blogs/articles/2022/08/25/new-economics-books-tackle-china-wheat-equality-and-the-dollar/index.json", "bundleManifest": "/en/blogs/articles/2022/08/25/new-economics-books-tackle-china-wheat-equality-and-the-dollar/bundle-manifest.json" }, "generatedAtUtc": "2026-08-27T02:44:02.899Z" }