Currency Politics

Jeffry A. Frieden, Currency Politics: The Political Economy of Exchange Rate Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015).

For the Table of Contents, Preface and Introduction, see here. The Data Appendix can be found here or on the Harvard Dataverse (Account required)

Available for Purchase:

Princeton University Press (Hardcover, $39.95; Paperback [August 2016], $22.95)

Amazon (Hardcover, $35.96; Kindle, $31.99)

Media:

“Currency Politics: The Eurozone Crisis and the World's Financial Future,” the Alice Gorlin Memorial Lecture, Oakland University, April 8, 2015. [If your Flash plugins are not up to date, there is a lower res. version available here.]

Jeffry Frieden, "Currency Politics," The Invisible Hand Podcast, May 2015.

Reviews:

"Currency Politics: The Political Economy of Exchange Rate Policy makes a considered and compelling case for the relevance of political economy to explaining currency policy. Monetary economics, which deals with money supply and the choice of exchange rate policy, is typically dominated by analysis using economic factors only. Currency Politics weaves together political economy theory, robust econometrics and historical analysis to explain the development of monetary policy using national political factors and the shifting global economic and political order." -- Jenny McArthur, LSE Review of Books Blog, April 2016.

"In Currency Politics, a quarter century of scholarly rumination has been distilled in one definitive treatment... His attention to detail is remarkable, and wherever the data permit, he backs his qualitative discussion with solid quantitative analysis... Readers unfamiliar with any of these episodes will find the treatment enlightening, even fascinating." Benjamin J. Cohen, "Review of Currency Politics," Journal of Economic Literature 52 (June 2015): 365-67.

"Given the vast literature on theories of exchange rate determination, this book reminds us of the primacy of politics. It integrates theory, statistical methods, and historical analysis, and will be of interest to social scientists, policy-makers, and money managers alike." George R. Hoguet, Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum Bulletin.

"Jeffry A. Frieden, Professor of Government at Harvard University, has written a fine book on the determinants of decision-making regarding exchange-rate regime and, to some extent, exchange-rate level within the selected regime. The book is readable for both economists and political scientists. I recommend Currency Politics to both sets of scholars. Economists will learn about the political aspects of exchange-regime choice and political scientists about the economic aspects." -- Lawrence Officer, EH.net.

"While the fragility of exchange rate commitments has been known since the publication of a 1995 paper by Obstfeld and Rogoff, the question of why some central banks fix the value of their currencies and others do not is less well understood. Jeffry Frieden’s Currency Politics provides a thoughtful guide to the political economy of exchange rate policy. ...

Frieden convincingly demonstrates, therefore, that exchange rate policy is governed by distributional concerns. Different interests take opposing sides over whether a fixed or flexible regime will be chosen, and whether it will be used as a policy tool to favor domestic producers. The relative influence of the competing interest groups can change over time. An increase in trade or financial openness, for example, can lead to a new alignment of parties." -- Joseph Joyce, Wellesley.