Barry Eichengreen on the History of Global Currencies

**David Beckworth** (0:02)
Welcome to Macro Musings, where each week we pull back the curtain and take a closer look at the most important macroeconomic issues of the past, present, and future. I am your host, David Beckworth, a senior research fellow with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, and I'm glad you decided to join us.
Our guest today is Barry Eichengreen. Barry is a well-known economist and economic historian from the University of California, Berkeley, where he has authored over 30 books, many on the international monetary system. Today, he joins to discuss his latest book, Money Beyond Borders, Global Currencies from Croesus to Crypto. It's a sweeping 2,500-year history of cross-border money stretching from the very first ancient coins to the rise of crypto currencies and central bank digital tokens. In a world-facing rising political gridlock and the constant talk of de-dollarization, this book uses the patterns of the past to show us exactly how global reserve currencies rise, how they fall, and what the future holds for the US dollar. Barry, welcome to the program.

**Barry Eichengreen** (1:14)
Good to be with you, David. I'm a fan of the podcast.

**David Beckworth** (1:17)
Well, thank you. Well, I am a fan of your work, and you are one of those individuals who's been influential on me, even though you didn't know it, but all your scholarship, your work, and we're here to talk about your most recent book here as I hold it up in front of the camera for those watching the video, Money Beyond Borders. But Barry, I have to say, you've written many other books. Now, I said 30, 30 may be the low end. We can talk about that, but let me run by you three books that I read, ones that I enjoyed and I read were influential. The first one is probably your most famous, I may be mistaken, it's Golden Fedders.
And this one here deals with the Great Depression, the gold standard, a wonderful book. And I'll tell you why I really enjoyed that one. Then I read this book here called Globalizing Capital, History of International Monetary Systems. And then the other book I had read, in fact, I signed this when I was teaching back when I was at a university, exorbitant privilege, the rise and fall of the dollar and the future of the monetary system. Now, I really enjoyed your Golden Fetters because it really opened my mind to the, well, to the gold standard, but the politics of it. You know, what do people tolerate, what they don't tolerate.
And you really had this great insight about how the democratization, the enfranchisement of voters really has a bearing on how well certain monetary systems work.
Now, Barry, let me ask you this. You've written well over 30 books. I said 30 again as a conservative estimates. If you had to pick one, other than your current book we're going to discuss today, which one would you pick and why?

**Barry Eichengreen** (2:57)
Let me preface the answer by saying it might be more accurate to say that I have 30 book-like publications. You know, what constitutes a book is hard to define in the eye of the beholder. Is it something that a single author has written? Is it a co-authored volume? Is it an edited volume? Some sole authored books are more substantial, take more years than others. So I don't count. I'm not sure where that number 30 comes from or whether I would defend it. But I would agree with you. The book that I am proudest of, I think, is Golden Fetters.
Partly because it was the first true book that I wrote. Partly because I think the scholarship there is substantial. It started with my PhD dissertation, which then germinated for almost 15 years. Sitting down from beginning the book to publication, took the better part of five years. Admittedly, I was writing other things in the interim during the process. But for all of those reasons, I think it was substantial.
Because I think one of the things I'm known for, one of my scholarly contributions, if you will, is to have developed along with other people like Peter Temin and Ben Bernanke, the international dimension of the Great Depression, how international factors, international monetary factors help explain the Great Depression in a way that closed economy models and theories cannot.

**David Beckworth** (4:41)
Yeah, that was a great book.
As you mentioned or alluded to, it takes us beyond the Milton Friedman, and the J Schwartz story of the Great Depression. They look at money. That's a fair reading if you look just at money, but it's a broader global story. I believe you and a co-author have a chart that made the rounds.