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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.

As countries in the European Union struggle to comply with the Maastricht Treaty, the question of monetary integration is at the forefront of European politics. Germany and the Politics of Europe’s Money explores how and why Germany—whose economic power makes it a pivotal player in the European monetary system—has developed inconsistent policies toward European monetary institutions and how international institutions affect domestic politics that, in turn, influence state policies toward these institutions.
Moving away from state-centered and Marxist approaches to the study of the European monetary integration process, Karl Kaltenthaler offers a new analytical framework to assess the dynamics within and among the participating countries. Using official and unofficial documents as well as interviews with players ranging from presidents of the Bundesbank to functionaries in the trade unions, Kaltenthaler argues that the number of decision makers negotiating policy and their accountability to interest groups, political parties, government ministries, and Germany’s central bank have made Germany’s fluctuations in policy inevitable. Germany and the Politics of Europe’s Money examines twenty years of German policy through an analysis of four key episodes: the creation of the European Monetary System, the creation of the Franco-German Economic and Financial Council, the establishment of policy toward the European Monetary Union, and the institutional transformation of the EMS in the 1990s. It thus brings a new understanding to Germany’s dynamic policies and the political forces behind them.

As the economies of China, India, and other Asian nations continue to grow, these countries are seeking greater control over the rules that govern international trade. Setting the rules carries with it the power to establish advantage, so it’s no surprise that everyone wants a seat at the table—or that negotiations over rules often result in stalemates at meeting of the World Trade Organization.

Nowhere is the conflict over rule setting more evident than in the simmering “standards wars” over the rules that define quality and enable the adjudication of disputes. In Global Rivalries, Amy A. Quark explores the questions of how rules are made, who makes them, and how they are enforced, using the lens of cotton—a simple commodity that has become a poignant symbol of both the crisis of Western rule making power and the potential for powerful new rivals to supplant it. Quark traces the strategies for influencing rule making processes employed not only by national governments but also by transnational corporations, fiber scientists, and trade associations from around the globe. Quark analyzes the efficacy of their approaches and the implications for more marginal actors in the cotton trade, including producers in West Africa.

By placing the current contest within the historical development of the global capitalist system, Global Rivalries highlights a fascinating interaction of politics and economics.

As awareness of the process of globalization grows and the study of its effects becomes increasingly important to governments and businesses (as well as to a sizable opposition), the need for historical understanding also increases. Despite the importance of the topic, few attempts have been made to present a long-term economic analysis of the phenomenon, one that frames the issue by examining its place in the long history of international integration.

This volume collects eleven papers doing exactly that and more. The first group of essays explores how the process of globalization can be measured in terms of the long-term integration of different markets-from the markets for goods and commodities to those for labor and capital, and from the sixteenth century to the present. The second set of contributions places this knowledge in a wider context, examining some of the trends and questions that have emerged as markets converge and diverge: the roles of technology and geography are both considered, along with the controversial issues of globalization's effects on inequality and social justice and the roles of political institutions in responding to them. The final group of essays addresses the international financial systems that play such a large part in guiding the process of globalization, considering the influence of exchange rate regimes, financial development, financial crises, and the architecture of the international financial system itself.

This volume reveals a much larger picture of the process of globalization, one that stretches from the establishment of a global economic system during the nineteenth century through the disruptions of two world wars and the Great Depression into the present day. The keen analysis, insight, and wisdom in this volume will have something to offer a wide range of readers interested in this important issue.

Along with its painful economic costs, the financial crisis of 2008 raised concerns over the future of international policy making. As in recessions past, new policy initiatives emerged, approaches that placed greater importance on protecting national interests than promoting international economic cooperation. Whether in fiscal or monetary policies, the control of currencies and capital flows, the regulation of finance, or the implementation of protectionist policies and barriers to trade, there has been an almost worldwide trend toward the prioritizing of national economic security. But what are the underlying economic causes of this trend, and what can economic research reveal about the possible consequences?

Prompted by these questions, Robert C. Feenstra and Alan M. Taylor have brought together top researchers with policy makers and practitioners whose contributions consider the ways in which the global economic order might address the challenges of globalization that have arisen over the last two decades and that have been intensified by the recent crisis. Chapters in this volume consider the critical linkages between issues, including exchange rates, global imbalances, and financial regulation, and plumb the political and economic outcomes of past policies for what they might tell us about the future of the global economic cooperation.

This important book compares the growth achieved in Japan and Europe with the frustrated growth in the major societies of mainland Eurasia. More broadly, it is about the conflict in world history between economic growth and political greed. Eric Jones proposes two fundamentally new frameworks. One replaces industrial revolution or great discontinuity as the source of change and challenges the reader to accept early periods and non-western societies as vital to understanding the growth process. The second offers a new explanation in which tendencies for growth were omnipresent but were usually--though not always--suppressed. Finally, the erosion of these negative factors is discussed, explaining the rise of a world economy in which growth has recurred and East Asia takes a prominent place.
Eric Jones has written a substantial new introduction for this edition, which includes discussions of early evidence of growth episodes and the relation of these points to the Industrial Revolution, and the relevance of the East Asian "miracle" to his thesis.