By showing that the basic assumptions if mainstream macroeconomics were and are flawed, the author aims to convince the reader that full employment and price stability are fully compatible goals in the modern world.

Controlling inflation is among the most important objectives of economic policy. By maintaining price stability, policy makers are able to reduce uncertainty, improve price-monitoring mechanisms, and facilitate more efficient planning and allocation of resources, thereby raising productivity. This volume focuses on understanding the causes of the Great Inflation of the 1970s and ’80s, which saw rising inflation in many nations, and which propelled interest rates across the developing world into the double digits. In the decades since, the immediate cause of the period’s rise in inflation has been the subject of considerable debate. Among the areas of contention are the role of monetary policy in driving inflation and the implications this had both for policy design and for evaluating the performance of those who set the policy. Here, contributors map monetary policy from the 1960s to the present, shedding light on the ways in which the lessons of the Great Inflation were absorbed and applied to today’s global and increasingly complex economic environment.

“Magisterial. . . . The direct and indirect influence of the Monetary History would be difficult to overstate.”—Ben S. Bernanke, Nobel Prize–winning economist and former chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve From Nobel Prize–winning economist Milton Friedman and his celebrated colleague Anna Jacobson Schwartz, one of the most important economics books of the twentieth century—the landmark work that rewrote the story of the Great Depression and the understanding of monetary policy Milton Friedman and Anna Jacobson Schwartz’s A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960 is one of the most influential economics books of the twentieth century. A landmark achievement, it marshaled massive historical data and sharp analytics to argue that monetary policy—steady control of the money supply—matters profoundly in the management of the nation’s economy, especially in navigating serious economic fluctuations. One of the book’s most important chapters, “The Great Contraction, 1929–33” addressed the central economic event of the twentieth century, the Great Depression. Friedman and Schwartz argued that the Federal Reserve could have stemmed the severity of the Depression, but failed to exercise its role of managing the monetary system and countering banking panics. The book served as a clarion call to the monetarist school of thought by emphasizing the importance of the money supply in the functioning of the economy—an idea that has come to shape the actions of central banks worldwide.

The open access publication of this book has been published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation. In Monetary Stability as a Common Concern in International Law, Lucía Satragno argues that monetary stability is a global public good that must be promoted and protected at all levels of governance. In doing so, the book accomplishes two tasks. On one hand, it provides an up to date analysis of the role of law and institutions in the international monetary field since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. On the other hand, it applies the methodological approach proposed by the novel doctrine of Common Concern of Humankind to monetary stability as a case study. Accordingly, the book examines not only the status quo of the international monetary system, but also looks at the ‘new and different realism’ that would be envisaged in monetary affairs in the case of a fully-fledged principle of Common Concern.

An insightful look at how to reform our broken financial system The financial crisis that unfolded in September 2008 transformed the United States and world economies. As each day's headlines brought stories of bank failures and rescues, government policies drawn and redrawn against the backdrop of an historic Presidential election, and solutions that seemed to be discarded almost as soon as they were proposed, a group of thirty-three academics at New York University Stern School of Business began tackling the hard questions behind the headlines. Representing fields of finance, economics, and accounting, these professors-led by Dean Thomas Cooley and Vice Dean Ingo Walter-shaped eighteen independent policy papers that proposed market-focused solutions to the problems within a common framework. In December, with great urgency, they sent hand-bound copies to Washington. Restoring Financial Stability is the culmination of their work. Proposes bold, yet principled approaches-including financial policy alternatives and specific courses of action-to deal with this unprecedented, systemic financial crisis Created by the contributions of various academics from New York University's Stern School of Business Provides important perspectives on both the causes of the global financial crisis as well as proposed solutions to ensure it doesn't happen again Contains detailed evaluations and analyses covering many spectrums of the marketplace Edited by Matthew Richardson and Viral Acharya, this reliable resource brings together the best thinking of finance and economics from the faculty of one of the top universities in world.