IMF update

 

Dear MARIA, We just published a new blog—read the full text below. New Economics Books Explore Trade, Finance, and a Changing World Order (Credit: IMF Photo/Tangyu Zhang)  By IMF Blog Editors Understanding the global economy requires insights that cut across history, policy, and finance. Several recent books, examining issues such as trade, development, and economic resilience, help offer that kind of understanding. The following selection of recent book reviews from the IMF’s Finance & Development magazine, includes some of the best guides:  Everybody Loves Our Dollars: How Money Laundering Won   Oliver Bullough’s book is a timely and unsettling tale of money laundering and the global fight against it. He challenges not only the effectiveness of the global anti–money laundering framework but also the way we conceptualize the problem itself. (Reviewed by Chady El Khoury) How to Win a Trade War: An Optimistic Guide to an Anxious Global Economy   Soumaya Keynes, a columnist at the Financial Times, and Chad Bown, a former chief economist at the US State Department, describe how trade wars actually unfold by examining changes in the global economy, policy choices of key players and the trade-offs of various strategies to respond to these shifts. (Reviewed by Elizabeth Van Heuvelen) The Doom Loop: Why the World Economic Order Is Spiraling into Disorder   Eswar Prasad doesn’t just make vague declarations about uncertainty and wistfully lament the decaying economic order. Rather, he identifies what went wrong and paints a picture of what comes next. (Reviewed by Meg Rithmire) Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future   Ostensibly a book about “China’s engineering mindset,” Dan Wang blends autobiography, travelogue, and sociopolitical observation interspersed with comparisons between China and the United States. The effect is tantalizing. Wang walks (and bikes) readers through well-depicted landscapes and cityscapes; pauses to appreciate cultural scenes and to savor culinary delights; and offers statistics, bits of history, and personal anecdotes along the way. (Reviewed by Melanie Sisson) 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History–and How It Shattered a Nation   Andrew Ross Sorkin tells the story of 1929 through a cast of characters that includes Charles Mitchell, president of National City Bank, a precursor of Citibank. Mitchell was keen to get Americans to buy stock—and borrow to do so—with no more thought than they would give to buying a washing machine on credit. He succeeded, with demand from ordinary Americans sending stock prices soaring and eventually setting up the crash. (Reviewed by Prakash Loungani) Money Beyond Borders: Global Currencies from Croesus to Crypto   Global trade turmoil sets the stage for this reflection on the evolution of international currencies. Barry Eichengreen argues that it is the absence of an alternative currency that has sustained dollar dominance so far. His new book takes a long perspective, reaching back to the origins of Roman currency and looking ahead to the impact of the current geopolitical disruption. (Reviewed by Catherine Schenk) Apostles of Development: Six Economists and the World They Made   David Engerman’s book is a thrill to read for any practitioner of development economics, but especially those who have studied or worked in South Asia. It’s a masterful intellectual and policy history, told through the lives and accomplishments of six South Asian economists: Amartya Sen, Jagdish Bhagwati, Manmohan Singh, Mahbub ul Haq, Rehman Sobhan, and Lal Jayawardene. (Reviewed by Kalpana Kochhar) Private Finance, Public Power: A History of Bank Supervision in America   Banking oversight in the United States developed through a process of institutionalized discretion and layering. Rather than rigid rules or improvised interventions, each crisis, reform, and political compromise added new layers of authority and responsibility. The result? A system in which public power negotiates continuously with private finance—a dynamic that ultimately defines financial governance. So say Peter Conti-Brown and Sean H. Vanatta, in their fascinating historical account of how bank supervision has evolved over two centuries. (Reviewed by Fabio Natalucci)   Shared Prosperity in a Fractured World: A New Economics for the Middle Class, the Global Poor, and Our Climate   The pillars of global economic thinking are wobbling. Voters around the world are no longer buying into the well-worn paradigms of the past 80 years, whether the free market Washington Consensus, the government-led Keynesian welfare state, or the rules-based liberal international order. Dani Rodrik’s book fills this void. (Reviewed by Christoph Rosenberg) Surviving Rome: The Economic Lives of the Ninety Percent   “The history of Rome,” writes US archaeologist Kim Bowes, “is peopled by the rich.” Cicero, Livy, and Tacitus chronicled the lives of consuls and emperors, but the classical world’s most celebrated scholars weren’t interested in ordinary working Romans. It’s an omission Bowes seeks to remedy in her remarkable and meticulously researched book. (Reviewed by Nicholas Owen) Trade in War: Economic Cooperation across Enemy Lines   Mariya Grinberg probes a fundamental question: Why do warring countries trade with each other? Grinberg, a political science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, posits both economic and security imperatives. (Reviewed by Elizabeth Van Heuvelen) False Dawn: The New Deal and the Promise of Recovery, 1933–1947   US President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal was so wide-ranging in its aims and scope that it’s hard to reach a simple verdict on its effectiveness. The author, George Selgin, challenges the idea that the New Deal was a coherent plan that Roosevelt designed before taking office. Rather, key components were cobbled together after his inauguration, often without Roosevelt’s initial support. (Reviewed by Carola Binder) Subscribe here for F&D’s explorations of economic and financial issues. Read the Blog Recent blogs Argentina Looks Forward After restoring stability, Argentina needs to turn hard-won gains into lasting prosperity Rising Global Imbalances Underscore Need to Confront Domestic Distortions Sustained rebalancing requires policy action in both surplus and deficit countries How Central Banks Can Contain Financial Stability Risks as AI Accelerates Change Stronger oversight, better data, and deeper coordination are needed to safeguard faster and more interconnected markets Thank you again for your interest in the IMF Blog. Please write to us directly and let us know your thoughts. We would love to hear from you.   Jeff Kearns  Managing Editor | IMF Blog  jkearns@IMF.org Stay connected with the International Monetary Fund:       This email was sent to politikimx@gmail.com on behalf of: International Monetary Fund 1900 Pennsylvania Ave NW · Washington, DC · 20431