After leading the world economy for a century, the United States faces the first real challenge to its supremacy in the rise of China.Is economic—or broader—conflict, well beyond the trade and technology war that has already erupted, inevitable between the world’s two superpowers? Will their clash produce a new economic leadership vacuum akin to the 1930s, when Great Britain was unable to play its traditional leadership role and a rising United States was unwilling...

After leading the world economy for a century, the United States faces the first real challenge to its supremacy in the rise of China. Is economic (or broader) conflict, well beyond the trade and technology war that has already erupted, inevitable between the world’s two superpowers? Will their clash produce a new economic leadership vacuum akin to the 1930s, when Great Britain was unable to play its traditional leadership role and a rising United States was unwilling to step in to save th...

An examination of the role of the dollar in the global financial system which presents a long-term historical perspective on the international monetary system in this century. The main focus is on the evaluation of the global financial system in the post-war period.

Conflicts over currency valuations are a recurrent feature of the modern global economy. To strengthen their international competitiveness, many countries resort to buying foreign currencies to make their exports cheaper and their imports more expensive. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, for example, China's currency manipulation practices were so flagrant that they produced a backlash in the United States and other trading partners, prompting threats of retaliation. How dam...

The terrain of the world trading system is shifting as countries in Asia, Europe, and North America negotiate new trade agreements. However, none of these talks include both China and the United States, the two biggest economies in the world. In this pathbreaking study, C. Fred Bergsten, Gary Clyde Hufbauer, and Sean Miner argue that China and the United States would benefit substantially from a bilateral free trade and investment accord or from participating together in a regional agreeme...

In September 1985, emissaries of the world's five leading industrial nations—the United States, Britain, France, Germany, and Japan—secretly gathered at the Plaza Hotel in New York City and unveiled an unprecedented effort to correct the largest set of current account and exchange rate imbalances that had ever threatened the world economy. The Plaza Accord is credited with sharply realigning exchange rates, significantly reducing current account imbalances, and countering protectionist pre...