Focusing on monetization of international trade per se, the text analyses common financial practices of merchants and manufacturers, commerical banks and central banks.
"Ronald McKinnon is a seminal figure in the development of modern international monetary economics, but also an iconoclast with a distinctive view. This book is as good a summary statement as any of 'McKinnonomics.' Well worth reading as always."--Barry Eichengreen, George C. Pardee & Helen N. Pardee Professor of Economics and Political Science, University of California, Berkeley"Ron McKinnon has written a masterful summary of the attractiveness of the U.S. dollar to foreign central banks and investors, and why the dollar standard has survived and flourished despite the challenges from the SDR, the Euro, the Japanese yen, and presumably the Chinese yuan. Government institutions and investors in Europe, Latin America, and Asia buy U.S. dollar securities because these purchases satisfy their interests; the 'dollar is the best game intown'. The paradox is that the U.S. payments deficit is a sign of the strength of the U.S. dollar."--Robert Z. Aliber, Professor of International Economics and Finance Emeritus, Booth School of Business,University of Chicago"Ron McKinnon is an original thinker, an iconoclast who always challenges the conventional wisdom, and never more so than in this latest book. He argues that the Fed should aim to stabilize the dollar's exchange rate, and that their current policy to push down interest rates to the zero lower bound has been wrong, both for the USA and for the wider world. His arguments may not find favour, but they are cogently and forcefully presented. This book should be agoad for policymakers and a stimulus for everyone else."-- Professor Charles Goodhart, Emeritus Professor of Banking and Finance, London School of Economics
