## New Economics Books Tackle China, Wheat, Equality, and the Dollar _IMF Blog, August 25, 2022_ ## Source details **Canonical URL:** [New Economics Books Tackle China, Wheat, Equality, and the Dollar](https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2022/08/25/new-economics-books-tackle-china-wheat-equality-and-the-dollar) ## Other formats - [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) ## Bibliographic details - Authors: Jeff Kearns - Published: August 25, 2022 --- ### Overview - 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 ### Key books and substantive findings - A Brief History of Equality (Thomas Piketty) - Societies have moved toward measurable improvements in the quality of life and fairer distribution of income and assets. - 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. - Oceans of Grain: How American Wheat Remade the World (Scott Reynolds Nelson) - Argues wheat plays a key role in the rise and fall of empires. - Presents a financial history emphasizing international commodity markets increasingly bound together by wheat. - The United States vs. China: The Quest for Global Economic Leadership (C. Fred Bergsten) - Contends the United States will inevitably have to share global economic leadership with China. - Rejects containment or persuading China to adopt Western views; focuses on the shape of shared leadership. - The Global Currency Power of the US Dollar: Problems and Prospects (Anthony Elson) - Documents the US dollar’s predominant role in the global financial system and its spillover effects for US monetary policy. - 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. - Career and Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey Toward Equity (Claudia Goldin) - Finds US women have made extraordinary gains in the world of work over the past century. - 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. - Three Days at Camp David: How a Secret Meeting in 1971 Transformed the Global Economy (Jeffrey E. Garten) - Details President Richard Nixon’s 1971 decision to close the “gold window.” - Chronicles how Nixon reframed the action from a mea culpa to a triumphant fresh start appealing to domestic audiences. - Harry White and the American Creed (James M. Boughton) - 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. - Cogs and Monsters: What Economics Is, and What It Should Be (Diane Coyle) - Examines how crises from the global financial crisis to the pandemic have fueled skepticism about capitalism and economics. - Diagnoses problems in the profession: entrenched networks blocking fresh ideas, an aggressive debating culture, and a lack of gender and racial diversity. - Monetary Policy in Times of Crisis: A Tale of Two Decades of the European Central Bank (Massimo Rostagno et al., ECB officials) - Analyzes challenges faced by the ECB in its first two crisis-prone decades and its handling of a monetary union in formation. - 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. - References President Mario Draghi’s 2012 “whatever it takes” dictum addressing the existential threat to the euro. - The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution Is Transforming Currencies and Finance (Eswar Prasad) - Argues current digital innovations in finance may presage even more dramatic changes to money, with broad social, economic, and political implications. - Where Credit Is Due: How Africa’s Debt Can Be a Benefit, Not a Burden (Gregory Smith) - 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.” - Devotes a chapter to China’s lending to Africa: scale, terms, nature, purposes, risks, and decades of debt relief. - Tumultuous Times: Central Banking in an Era of Crisis (Masaaki Shirakawa) - Recounts four decades at the Bank of Japan: economic miracle, bubble, burst, and lost decades. - 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. ### Cross-cutting themes and implications - Crises as catalysts for rethinking economic institutions and policies: - Global financial crisis, pandemic, war, inflation, debt, and fragmentation prompt examination of long-term structures and policy responses. - Distribution and equity: - 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. - Global leadership and currency dynamics: - 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. - Financial stability and central banking: - Central bank mandates and priorities are questioned; some argue for prioritizing financial stability alongside or before price stability. - Technological transformation of money: - Digital innovation could fundamentally reshape currencies and finance, with major social and political consequences. - Debt and development: - Advocacy for purposeful borrowing and creditor coordination to make debt a tool for development rather than a burden. *IMF blog: New Economics Books Tackle China, Wheat, Equality, and the Dollar — August 25, 2022* --- ## References - [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) _Source: https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2022/08/25/new-economics-books-tackle-china-wheat-equality-and-the-dollar_