As trade flows expanded and trade agreements proliferated after World War II, governments-most notably the United States-came increasingly to use their power over imports and exports to influence the behavior of other countries. But trade is not the only way in which nations interact economically. Over the past two decades, another form of economic exchange has risen to a level of vastly greater significance and political concern: the purchase and sale of financial assets across borders. Nearly $2 trillion worth of currency now moves cross-border every day, roughly 90 percent of which is accounted for by financial flows unrelated to trade in goods and services-a stunning inversion of the figures in 1970. The time is ripe to ask fundamental questions about what Benn Steil and Robert Litan have coined as "financial statecraft," or those aspects of economic statecraft directed at influencing international capital flows. How precisely has the American government practiced financial statecraft? How effective have these efforts been? And how can they be made more effective? The authors provide penetrating and incisive answers in this timely and stimulating book.


About the Author

Benn Steil is director of international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations and the editor of International Finance. Robert E. Litan is vice president of research and policy at the Kauffman Foundation and senior fellow in the Economic Studies Program at the Brookings Institution.

Reviews
"'A highly readable account of an important, if potentially dry, subject: how international capital flows have been and are still used as instruments of foreign policy... What makes Financial Statecraft particularly useful for non-economists and policymakers, as well as Wall Street executives and historians alike, is the authors' willingness to be prescriptive about finance in public policy... This is a useful, accessible book for lay readers seeking an understanding of the important role that capital flows play in the making of foreign policy.' Economist"



Book Information
ISBN 9780300138412
Author Benn Steil
Format Paperback
Page Count 224
Imprint Yale University Press
Publisher Yale University Press
Weight(grams) 345g