“A brilliant and lucid new book” (John Lanchester, New York Times Magazine) about why paper money and digital currencies lie at the heart of many of the world’s most difficult problems—and their solutions In The Curse of Cash, acclaimed economist and bestselling author Kenneth Rogoff explores the past, present, and future of currency, showing why, contrary to conventional economic wisdom, the regulation of paper bills—and now digital currencies—lies at the heart some of the world’s most difficult problems, but also their potential solutions. When it comes to currency, history shows that the private sector often innovates but eventually the government regulates and appropriates. Using examples ranging from the history of standardized coinage to the development of paper money, Rogoff explains why the cryptocurrency boom will inevitably end with dominant digital currencies created and controlled by governments, regardless of what Bitcoin libertarians want. Advanced countries still urgently need to stem the global flood of large paper bills—the vast majority of which serve no legitimate purpose and only enable tax evasion and other crimes—but cryptocurrencies are like $100 bills on steroids. The Curse of Cash is filled with revealing insights about many of the most pressing issues facing monetary policymakers, from quantitative easing to alternative inflation targeting regimes. It also explains in detail why, if low interest rates persist, the best way to reinvigorate monetary policy is to implement fully effective and unconstrained negative interest rates. Provocative, engaging, and backed by compelling original arguments and evidence, The Curse of Cash has sparked widespread debate and its ideas have moved to the center of financial and policy discussions.

""As soon as Independence had been won from Great Britain, the decks were clear for a second fight. That fight, as is usually found after a successful revolution, was the fight to decide whether independence was to be true independence or whether, after the change of names, the financial system was to re-establish over the new government that same control which it had exercised over the old."" This is the story of the first 40 years of that war. A shorth history of paper money and banking in the U.S. An inquiry into the principles of the American banking system Letter to Andrew Jackson An inquiry into the expediency of dispensing with bank agency and bank paper in fiscal concerns of the U.S. Journal of Banking Banking as it ought to be Banks of the United States William M. Gouge and the formation of orthodox American monetary policy

An exposition on the principles of banking with a full account of incidents in the history of American banking.