So what's gonna happen to the dollar, anyway?

Posted By Daniel W. Drezner Friday, September 3, 2010 - 3:30 AM Share

At APSA today I attended a panel on what political scientists can offer to political journalists. Mark Schmitt, Marc Ambinder, Matt Yglesias, Mark Blumenthal, and Ezra Klein all offered interesting advice. Two messages that came through loud and clear:

1) Be willing to advertise one's research wares; and

2) ~~Mr. Gorbachev, tear down these paywalls~~ Make the research accessible to people without a JSTOR account.

So, in that spirit, let me announce that I have an article in the latest issue of International Relations of the Asia-Pacific entitled "Will Currency Follow The Flag?" It's on the future of the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency. The abstract:

The 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath have triggered uncertainty about the future of the dollar as the world's reserve currency. China and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region have voiced support for a new global monetary regime. There are both economic and geopolitical motivations at the root of these challenges. Going forward, what will the future hold for the international monetary system? Crudely put, will currency follow the flag?

This article addresses this question by considering the economic opportunity and geopolitical willingness of actors in the Pacific Rim to shift away from the current international monetary system – with a special emphasis on China as the most powerful actor in the region. While the dollar has shifted from being a top currency to a negotiated one, neither the opportunity nor the willingness to shift away from the dollar is particularly strong. The current window of opportunity for actors in the region to coordinate a shift in the monetary system is small and constrained. The geopolitical willingness to subordinate monetary politics to security concerns is muted.

The entire article is free for anyone to download and read. So read the whole thing, political journalists!!

EXPLORE:ECONOMICS, BRETTON WOODS II, CHINA, DOLLAR, FINANCIAL MELTDOWN, FINANCIAL STATECRAFT

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SCOOP

3:46 PM ET

September 3, 2010

Heavy in dollars, China warns of depreciation

Reuters, Sep 2, 2010

"Hu Xiaolian, a vice governor with the People's Bank of China, warned that depreciation loomed as a risk for foreign exchange reserves held by developing counties. She reiterated China's long-standing discomfort with a global financial system dominated by a single currency in the dollar. There have been signs in recent months that Beijing has stepped up the pace of diversification of its foreign exchange reserves away from dollar assets. But analysts have also warned against reading too much into the apparent shifts in the flow of cash from China. The China Securities Journal laid out the prospects for a shift back to the dollar in the near term."

TEYMOOR

8:07 AM ET

September 4, 2010

Free?

Maybe it's just me, but they only provide an extract. You need to subscribe to read the whole thing.

GRANT

10:45 AM ET

September 6, 2010

It's possible that you need

It's possible that you need to register with the site before you can view 'free' articles. I just did and still can't get it but I did receive an email mentioning that it can take up to 36 hours for an account to activate*.

On another note, usually JSTOR isn't useful for anything more recent than five years ago at best. I realize that journals need money to print but most recent graduates don't have the means or connections to read the articles that they publish which makes the journals a bit pointless. Between this and the price of text books I think there is a serious gap between the academic community and the students who are supposed to be preparing to enter this community.

* Which is more than a bit puzzling. I've registered with at least several dozen (probably more) different sites of different content for a wide range of entertainment and professional purposes. I can only think of one or two other sites that would take more than a few hours at the absolute most to activate an account. In fact most did it in less than a minute.

CEMAY

5:29 AM ET

September 6, 2010

dolar

I think because war ended it'll increase. But who can surely knows dollars future?

A DUOIST

8:16 AM ET

September 6, 2010

U.S. Dollar

If anyone in the world knew what the value of the dollar would be even just one day in the future, they could be instant billionaires. Absolutely no one knows the future value of the dollar, which is why the market exists.

As for 'free,' Oxford does not charge money, but what is the point of requiring registration for 'free' information, if not for more 'free' marketing of other 'free' and not-so-free products?

ZACHARY KECK

8:40 AM ET

September 6, 2010

Any particular panels and/or

Any particular panels and/or papers from APSA that you found particularly noteworthy and recommend for those of us not able to attend?

Thanks for the free paper. I'd also like to make a suggestion on this topic if I may. One service I think political scientists can provide the public (assuming they're using blogs and social networking like you) is simply announcing that you published an article. I keep up on many of the more prominent IR journals but there sure is a lot of them. To an undergrad like me it seems overwhelming trying to remember all of them and then checking up on them regularly. Is there some trick to this that gets revealed to you after you meet the criteria you listed in your post about how to tell if you're an expert?