The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution Is Transforming Currencies and Finance

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Eswar S. Prasad

The Future of Money

How the Digital Revolution Is Transforming Currencies and Finance

Eswar S. Prasad

$61.95

Hardback

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English

Belknap Press
21 September 2021

Economics & Business; Monetary economics; Corporate finance; Banking; E-commerce: business aspects

A cutting-edge look at how accelerating financial change, from the end of cash to the rise of cryptocurrencies, will transform economies for better and worse.

We think we've seen financial innovation. We bank from laptops and buy coffee with the wave of a phone. But these are minor miracles compared with the dizzying experiments now underway around the globe, as businesses and governments alike embrace the possibilities of new financial technologies. As Eswar Prasad explains, the world of finance is at the threshold of major disruption that will affect corporations, bankers, states, and indeed all of us. The transformation of money will fundamentally rewrite how ordinary people live.

Above all, Prasad foresees the end of physical cash. The driving force won't be phones or credit cards but rather central banks, spurred by the emergence of cryptocurrencies to develop their own, more stable digital currencies. Meanwhile, cryptocurrencies themselves will evolve unpredictably as global corporations like Facebook and Amazon join the game. The changes will be accompanied by snowballing innovations that are reshaping finance and have already begun to revolutionize how we invest, trade, insure, and manage risk.

Prasad shows how these and other changes will redefine the very concept of money, unbundling its traditional functions as a unit of account, medium of exchange, and store of value. The promise lies in greater efficiency and flexibility, increased sensitivity to the needs of diverse consumers, and improved market access for the unbanked. The risk is instability, lack of accountability, and erosion of privacy. A lucid, visionary work, The Future of Money shows how to maximize the best and guard against the worst of what is to come.

By: Eswar S. Prasad
Imprint: Belknap Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9780674258440
ISBN 10: 0674258444
Pages: 496
Publication Date: 21 September 2021
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Eswar S. Prasad is the Tolani Senior Professor of Trade Policy and Professor of Economics at Cornell University. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he holds the New Century Chair in International Economics, and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is the author of Gaining Currency: The Rise of the Renminbi and The Dollar Trap: How the U.S. Dollar Tightened Its Grip on Global Finance.

Reviews for The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution Is Transforming Currencies and Finance

In The Future of Money Eswar Prasad explains how technology will impact everything financial, from what money will look like to peer-to-peer lending, central banking, and cross-border capital flows. In lucid prose, Prasad explains to the intelligent layperson how exactly Bitcoin works and whether a digital renminbi could challenge the US dollar. If you are looking for an insightful and comprehensive guide to how monetary finance might change, look no further. -- Raghuram G. Rajan, Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, former Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund, and former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India Money shapes economies, economies shape nations, nations shape history. It follows that the future of money is profoundly important. Here is a definitive report on where we are and where we are going. -- Lawrence H. Summers, Charles W. Eliot Professor and President Emeritus, Harvard University Drawing on his extensive policymaking experience and insights as one of the leading macroeconomists, Eswar Prasad in The Future of Money provides a comprehensive account of the economic, social, and technological issues that will determine how we save, invest, buy, and sell in the future. -- Mark Carney, former Governor of the Bank of England In The Future of Money Eswar Prasad has produced a single-volume masterpiece with all one needs to know about an amazing upcoming turning point in monetary policy. He shows that if we follow his sensible advice and heed his warnings of over-regulation and fear, Central Bank Digital Currency will be a genuine help to the poor and a gateway to global stability. Encyclopedic and carefully researched, the book is packed with many valuable, easy-to-understand examples. -- John B. Taylor, Stanford University A sober-minded and informative take on an overheated topic. * Publishers Weekly * Prasad aims to pull together some of the threads about bitcoin and such like to set out a big picture on money...Prasad's helpful discussion of the pressures on, and options available to, central banks was illuminating. I found his framing of the ways in which these new technologies simultaneously make regulation both easier and more difficult interesting. -- David Birch * Financial World *