Financial Statecraft

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Financial Statecraft

The Role of Financial Markets in American Foreign Policy

International economics

Authors: Benn Steil, Robert E. Litan

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Language: English

Published by: Yale University Press

Published on: 1st October 2008

Format: LCP-protected ePub

Size: 224 pages

ISBN: 9780300128260


Introduction

This is a useful, accessible book for lay readers seeking an understanding of the important role that capital flows play in . . . foreign policy.

Historical Context

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.

Financial Flows

Nearly $2 trillion worth of currency now moves cross-border every day, roughly ninety 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.

Key Questions

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.

Endorsements

Benn Steil and Robert Litan have written the first book devoted to financial statecraft, and it is essential reading for anyone interested in the critical issue of influencing the international capital flows that make an integrated global economy function. —Stuart Eizenstat, former US Ambassador to the EU and Deputy Secretary of Treasury

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