Currency Politics is an ambitious book on an important topic. Frieden is one of the best political economists and one of the best scholars writing on this subject." —Sebastian Edwards, University of California, Los Angeles and author of Toxic Aid The book is readable for both economists and political scientists. I recommend Currency Politics to both sets of scholars. Economists will learn about the political aspects of exchange-regime choice and political scientists about the economic aspects. ---Lawrence H. Officer, EH.Net The moment when you start to wonder what money is feels like pitching through a trapdoor into the void. This book is a marvelous aid to stabilizing that awful sense of cognitive vertigo. By examining several periods in the history of money, and showing how it has been used in each period to constitute power and the state, Eich brings us to the present with a much clearer sense of where we are, how we got here, and how we might seize money itself and use it as a creative political force for good.”—Kim Stanley Robinson, author of Ministry for the Future Even though written clearly, this book is a challenging read; it surprises readers with sudden enlightenment on profound concepts like the impossible trinity, substitution and income effects of currency, the Mundell-Fleming-Dornush Framework, the Dornush overshooting model, and the optimum currency area theory, among others. As the author relates these concepts to historical events, the reader is compelled to continue reading the book until its conclusion."—Shishir Shakya, Review of Regional Studies Currency Politics is an ambitious book on an important topic. Frieden is one of the best political economists and one of the best scholars writing on this subject."—Sebastian Edwards, University of California, Los Angeles and author of Toxic Aid

An intellectual history of money that theoretically grounds the works of others working on democratizing money. The Currency of Politics is a great addition to the philosophy of money."—Valerie Schreur, Oeconomia The chapters on currency policy in nineteenth-century USA are particularly illustrative: large-scale infrastructure investment acted as a catalyst for economic growth and geographical expansion across the new continent, leading to the emergence of two competing political blocs in the agricultural hinterland and urban centres of industry and finance. Railroad magnates funded new railways using foreign-denominated debt and had strong interest in moving away from gold to a floating exchange rate. Farmers and mining firms shared this interest and voted for lower price levels along with a floating exchange rate to guarantee competitiveness in export markets. Manufacturers went against expected behaviour for two reasons: import tariffs were relatively high, particularly after the Civil War, and the US was geographically distant from potential competitors. With high transport costs protecting firms from competition with European counterparts, they could easily pass-through the costs of currency fluctuations to consumers. The Latin American analysis conversely brings to light a tendency for currencies to appreciate in the lead-up to an election, boosting the purchasing power of consumers to support re-election for the incumbent government, but in some cases creating unsustainable price levels and precipitating a currency crisis. The appeal of this text to economists and political scientists alike is obvious; however, it also explains monetary economics with such clarity that it is unusually accessible – at least for the field of economics – to a more general audience. Think of it as occupying the middle ground between pop economics titles, like Freakonomics, and more formidable volumes, such as Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Eich’s contribution demarcates a new space for political thought on money, and brings together key theorists on the structuration of money both to show that political thought often has a direct effect on the type of monetary system that is maintained, and to show that democratic agency vis-a-vis money is often wilfully ignored."—Dominic Burbidge, Politics and Poetics In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, critical attention has shifted from the economy to the most fundamental feature of all market economies—money. Yet despite the centrality of political struggles over money, it remains difficult to articulate its democratic possibilities and limits. The Currency of Politicstakes readers from ancient Greece to today to provide an intellectual history of money, drawing on the insights of key political philosophers to show how money is not just a medium of exchange but also a central institution of political rule.You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here.

It’s been a wild week in Westminster and it’s starting to look like the Tories are losing their grip. Ed and George chew over the Supreme Court’s judgment on Rwanda and what it means for Sunak. Could his new Foreign Secretary slam the brakes on some Tories’ hopes to leave the ECHR? Identifying the motivations for currency policy preferences on the part of industries seeking to influence politicians, Jeffry Frieden shows how each industry’s characteristics—including its exposure to currency risk and the price effects of exchange rate movements—determine those preferences. Frieden evaluates the accuracy of his theoretical arguments in a variety of historical and geographical settings: he looks at the politics of the gold standard, particularly in the United States, and he examines the political economy of European monetary integration. He also analyzes the politics of Latin American currency policy over the past forty years, and focuses on the daunting currency crises that have frequently debilitated Latin American nations, including Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil. Jeffry A. Frieden, Professor of Government at Harvard University, has written a fine book on the determinants of decision-making regarding exchange-rate regime and, to some extent, exchange-rate level within the selected regime. The book is readable for both economists and political scientists. I recommend Currency Politics to both sets of scholars. Economists will learn about the political aspects of exchange-regime choice and political scientists about the economic aspects." -- Lawrence Officer, EH.net. While the fragility of exchange rate commitments has been known since the publication of a 1995 paper by Obstfeld and Rogoff, the question of why some central banks fix the value of their currencies and others do not is less well understood. Jeffry Frieden’s Currency Politics provides a thoughtful guide to the political economy of exchange rate policy. ... The Currency of Politics breaks the frame we use to understand money. More than an instrument or an institution, currency becomes a nerve center of political theory. Deeply in dialogue with the past, Stefan Eich compels us forward to conceptualize money as a medium for democratic agency—or its loss. A tour de force.”—Christine Desan, author of Making Money: Coin, Currency, and the Coming of Capitalism

This excellent book is for anyone who has ever wondered about the origins of the Eurozone, the causes of the currency crises, and the importance of the classical gold standard. Frieden combines lively historical narratives with statistical analyses to show that currency politics are pretty much the same across time and space. No other author could bring out the common threads running through the book's cases so clearly." —J. Lawrence Broz, University of San Diego If you are interested in this review, you may also like to listen to a podcast of Professor Frieden’s LSE public lecture, ‘Lessons for the Euro from America’s Past’, recorded on 19 January 2016. With this framework in place, a set of case studies is used to test the relevance of political economy to currency policy at various stages in history: namely, the United States during the transition to the gold standard (1862-96); European monetary integration between 1973-94; and Latin American policy between 1970-2010. The individual elements of Frieden’s theories are tested empirically to understand how important the political economy of currency policy is to explain voting patterns and government policy choices.

With deftness, elegance, and intellectual verve, Eich paints a vivid and compelling picture of the whole history of political and economic thought as revealed through an interrogation of money. It is clear that this insightful book announces a new and important voice in the field.” —David Singh Grewal, author of Network Power A fresh and splendidly clear guide to the intellectual history of monetary policy. . . . The Currency of Politics is an invaluable guide to why — and how to think about what comes next."—Felix Martin, Financial Times The book is readable for both economists and political scientists. I recommend Currency Politics to both sets of scholars. Economists will learn about the political aspects of exchange-regime choice and political scientists about the economic aspects."—Lawrence H. Officer, EH.Net The first chapters introduce basic policy choices for managing the monetary system: exchange rate regimes, either fixed, floating or pegged to another currency, and a currency’s price level. The choice of regime depends on competing demands for stability and flexibility, while the price level is held in tension between supporting price competitiveness for exporters and the purchasing power of consumers.Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial? A decade and a half later, they have a podcast. It’s called Political Currency, and it follows the stunningly successful format of The Rest Is Politics, where Blairite spin doctor Alastair Campbell and erstwhile Tory heavyweight Rory Stewart “disagree agreeably” about politics to millions of eager listeners. To distinguish themselves, Osborne and Balls are focusing specifically on economics (“currency” – get it?). Apparently they “have the knowledge and experience to explain how good politics follows the economics”. A look at how their careers ended – with Balls losing his seat in 2015 and Osborne’s ascendance cut short by the 2016 EU referendum – suggests this is up for debate. Currency Politics: The Eurozone Crisis and the World's Financial Future,” the Alice Gorlin Memorial Lecture, Oakland University, April 8, 2015. [If your Flash plugins are not up to date, there is a lower res. version available here.] In Currency Politics, Frieden not only draws together beautifully the strands of his previous work, but he advances a new and entirely persuasive explanation of the euro project as an essential bulwark against competitive devaluations. Above all, he argues convincingly for the centrality of exchange rate policy to domestic politics, international relations, and macroeconomics in open economies."—Ronald Rogowski, University of California, Los Angeles