Kenneth S. Rogoff

“A brilliant and lucid new book” (John Lanchester, New York Times Magazine ) about why paper money and digital currencies lie at the heart of many of the world’s most difficult problems―and their solutionsIn The Curse of Cash , acclaimed economist and bestselling author Kenneth Rogoff explores the past, present, and future of currency, showing why, contrary to conventional economic wisdom, the regulation of paper bills―and now digital currencies―lies at the heart some of the world’s most difficult problems, but also their potential solutions. When it comes to currency, history shows that the private sector often innovates but eventually the government regulates and appropriates. Using examples ranging from the history of standardized coinage to the development of paper money, Rogoff explains why the cryptocurrency boom will inevitably end with dominant digital currencies created and controlled by governments, regardless of what Bitcoin libertarians want. Advanced countries still urgently need to stem the global flood of large paper bills―the vast majority of which serve no legitimate purpose and only enable tax evasion and other crimes―but cryptocurrencies are like $100 bills on steroids.The Curse of Cash is filled with revealing insights about many of the most pressing issues facing monetary policymakers, from quantitative easing to alternative inflation targeting regimes. It also explains in detail why, if low interest rates persist, the best way to reinvigorate monetary policy is to implement fully effective and unconstrained negative interest rates.Provocative, engaging, and backed by compelling original arguments and evidence, The Curse of Cash has sparked widespread debate and its ideas have moved to the center of financial and policy discussions.

Africa lags behind other regions in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI). In some circumstances, there are obvious explanations for the absence of FDI, such as a high incidence of war. In this paper, we examine the role that monetary and exchange rate policy may have played in explaining this outcome. Specifically, we document the incidence of inflationary episodes and currency crashes in order to compare countries within the region as well as to make comparisons with other regions. Furthermore, since monetary policy can range from very transparent to very opaque, we assess Africa's track record with dual and parallel markets. We use the parallel market premia as an indicator of the degree of distortions and extent of transparency. Our findings suggest that this is a promising line of inquiry because Africa does stand apart from other regions in this measure of transparency. We also discuss some of the fiscal underpinnings of Africa's bouts with high inflation.

This paper describes the evolution of ideas to apply bankruptcy reorganization principles to sovereign debt crises. Our focus is on policy proposals between the late 1970s and Anne Krueger's (2001) proposed "Sovereign Debt-Restructuring Mechanism," with brief reference to the economics literature on sovereign debt. We describe the perceived inefficiencies that motivate proposals, and how proposals seek to change debtor and creditor incentives. We find that there has been a moving concensus on what constitutes the underlying problem, but not on how to fix it. The range of proposed approaches remains broad and only recently shows some signs of narrowing.

The literature on the benefits and costs of financial globalization for developing countries has exploded in recent years, but along many disparate channels and with a variety of apparently conflicting results. For instance, there is still little robust evidence of the growth benefits of broad capital account liberalization, but a number of recent papers in the finance literature report that equity market liberalizations do significantly boost growth. Similarly, evidence based on microeconomic (firm- or industry-level) data shows some benefits of financial integration and the distortionary effects of capital controls, while the macroeconomic evidence remains inconclusive. We attempt to provide a unified conceptual framework for organizing this vast and growing literature. This framework allows us to provide a fresh synthetic perspective on the macroeconomic effects of financial globalization, in terms of both growth and volatility. Overall, our critical reading of the recent empirical literature is that it lends some qualified support to the view that developing countries can benefit from financial globalization, but with many nuances. On the other hand, there is little systematic evidence to support widely cited claims that financial globalization by itself leads to deeper and more costly developing country growth crises.