Eichengreen, Barry J. 1952-

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Eichengreen, Barry J. 1952-

PERSONAL:

Born 1952. Education: University of California Santa Cruz, B.A., 1974; Yale University, M.A., 1976, M.Phil., 1977, M.A. 1978; Ph.D., 1979.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of Economics, University of California, Berkeley, 549 Evans Hall, Rm. 3880, Berkeley, CA 94720-3880. E-mail—eichengr@econ.berkeley.edu.

CAREER:

Writer, economist, educator. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, began as assistant professor, became associate professor, 1980-86; University of California, Berkeley, professor, 1986-94, John L. Simpson Professor of Economics and Professor of Political Science, 1994-99, George C. Pardee and Helen N. Pardee Professor of Economics and Professor of Political Science, 1999—. Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, London, England, 1984—; Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA. 1986—; International Research Fellow, Kiel Institute of World Economics, 2001—. Senior Policy Advisor, International Monetary Fund, 1997-98.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Faculty research fellow, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1981-86; research fellow, Center for Economic Policy Research, 1984; fellow, American Academy of Arts and Letters; fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences; Jonathan R.T. Hughes Prize for Excellence in Teaching, Economic History Association, 2002; Social Science Division's Distinguished Teaching Award, University of California, Berkeley, 2004. Doctor honoris causa, American University, Paris, France.

WRITINGS:

Sterling and the Tariff, 1929-32, International Finance Section (Princeton, NJ), 1981.

(With Alec Cairncross) Sterling in Decline: The Devaluations of 1931, 1949, and 1967, B. Blackwell (Oxford, England), 1983, 2nd edition, Palgrave/Macmillan (New York, NY), 2003.

(Editor) The Gold Standard in Theory and History, Methuen (New York, NY), 1985.

The Australian Recovery of the 1930s in International Comparative Perspective, Australian National University (Canberra, Australia), 1985.

(Editor, with T.J. Hatton) Interwar Unemployment in International Perspective, Kluwer Academic Publishers (Boston, MA), 1988.

(Editor, with Peter H. Lindert) The International Debt Crisis in Historical Perspective, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1989.

(With Richard Portes) Dealing with Debt: The 1930s and the 1980s, World Bank (Washington, DC), 1989.

Elusive Stability: Essays in the History of International Finance, 1919-1939, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1990.

(Editor, with Erik Aerts) Unemployment and Underemployment in Historical Perspective: Session B-9: Proceedings, Tenth International Economic History Congress, Leuven, August 1990, Leuven University Press (Leuven, Belgium), 1990.

(Editor) Monetary Regime Transformations, E. Elgar Publishing (Brookfield, VT), 1992.

(With Tamim Bayoumi) Shocking Aspects of European Monetary Unification, Center for German and European Studies (Berkeley, CA), 1992.

European Monetary Unification and the Regional Unemployment Problem, Center for German and European Studies (Berkeley, CA), 1992.

Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression, 1919-1939, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1992.

Should the Maastricht Treaty Be Saved?, Princeton University (Princeton, NJ), 1992.

(With Jeffrey Frieden) The Political Economy of European Monetary Unification: An Analytical Introduction (working paper), University of California (Berkeley, CA), 1993.

(Editor, with others) Labor and an Integrated Europe, Brookings Institution (Washington, DC), 1993.

(Editor, with Michael D. Bordo) A Retrospective on the Bretton Woods System: Lessons for International Monetary Reform, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 1993.

Reconstructing Europe's Trade and Payments: The European Payments Union, University of Michigan Press (Ann Arbor, MI), 1993.

(Editor, with Jeffry Frieden) The Political Economy of European Monetary Unification, Westview Press (Boulder, CO), 1994, 2nd edition, 2001.

(With Tamim Bayoumi) One Money or Many? Analyzing the Prospects for Monetary Unification inVarious Parts of the World, International Finance Section (Princeton, NJ), 1994.

Financing Infrastructure in Developing Countries: Lessons from the Railway Age, World Bank (Washington, DC), 1994.

International Monetary Arrangements for the 21st Century, Brookings Institution (Washington, DC), 1994.

(Editor, with others) Convertibilidade Cambial: Conferéncia Comemorativa Da Adesau De Portugal Ao Padráo-ouro: Estudos Gerais Da Arrábida, 3-4 De Junho De 1994, Banco de Portugal e Fundacao Luso-Americana para o Desenvolvimento (Lisbon, Portugal), 1995.

(Editor) Europe's Post-war Recovery, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1995.

(Editor, with others) Monetary and Fiscal Policy in an Integrated Europe, Springer-Verlag (New York, NY), 1995.

(Editor, with others) Politics and Institutions in an Integrated Europe, Springer-Verlag (New York, NY), 1995.

(Editor, with others) Currency Convertibility: The Gold Standard and Beyond, Routledge (New York, NY), 1996.

(Editor, with others) Modern Perspectives on the Gold Standard, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1996.

(Editor) The Reconstruction of the International Economy, 1945-1960, E. Elgar (Brookfield, VT), 1996.

(With Albert Fishlow) Contending with Capital Flows: What Is Different about the 1990s?, Council on Foreign Relations (New York, NY), 1996.

Globalizing Capital: A History of the International Monetary System, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1996.

A More Perfect Union? The Logic of Economic Integration, International Finance Section (Princeton, NJ), 1996.

European Monetary Unification: Theory, Practice, and Analysis, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1997.

(With others) Capital Account Liberalization: Theoretical and Practical Aspects, International Monetary Fund (Washington, DC), 1998.

(With others) Exit Strategies: Policy Options for Countries Seeking Greater Exchange Rate Flexibility, International Monetary Fund (Washington, DC), 1998.

(Editor, with Jeffry Frieden) Forging an Integrated Europe, University of Michigan Press (Ann Arbor, MI), 1998.

(With others) Hedge Funds and Financial Market Dynamics, International Monetary Fund (Washington, DC), 1998.

(Editor) Transatlantic Economic Relations in the Post-Cold War Era, Council on Foreign Relations (New York, NY), 1998.

(With others) Transition Strategies and Nominal Anchors on the Road to Greater Exchange-Rate Flexibility, International Finance Section (Princeton, NJ), 1999.

(With Ashoka Mody) Lending Booms, Reserves, and the Sustainability of Short-Term Debts: Inferences from the Pricing of Syndicated Bank Loans, World Bank (Washington, DC), 1999.

Toward a New International Financial Architecture: A Practical Post-Asia Agenda, Institute for International Economics (Washington, DC), 1999.

Capitalizing on Globalization, Asian Development Bank (Manila, Philippines), 2002.

Financial Crises: And What to Do about Them, Oxford University Press (Oxford, England), 2002.

Capital Flows and Crises, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 2003.

(Editor, with Duck-Koo Chung) The Korean Economy beyond the Crisis, Edward Elgar (Northampton, MA), 2004.

Financial Development in Asia: The Way Forward, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (Singapore), 2004.

(Editor, with Ricardo Hausmann) Other People's Money: Debt Denomination and Financial Instability in Emerging Market Economies, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 2005.

(Editor, with Duck-Koo Chung) Toward an East Asian Exchange Rate Regime, Brookings Institution Press (Washington, DC), 2007.

The European Economy since 1945: Coordinated Capitalism and Beyond, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 2007.

Global Imbalances and the Lessons of Bretton Woods, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 2007.

Also author of numerous articles in professional journals and for online publications, including the National Bureau of Economic Research (Cambridge, MA).

SIDELIGHTS:

A professor of economics and political science, Barry J. Eichengreen is the author and editor of a host of books dealing with aspects of economics, from debt crises to the setting of international exchange rates. He has written extensively on economic matters in a European, American, and Asia context. Eichengreen has also combined a multidisciplinary approach to his work, blending historical and political perspectives into his works. A former senior advisor to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Eichengreen has also experienced firsthand the implementation of economic theory.

Much of Eichengreen's early work focused on Europe, and with his The European Economy since 1945: Coordinated Capitalism and Beyond, he presents an overview. Eichengreen contends in this work that the worker and employer landscape of the first several decades of postwar Europe, with its strong unions and a blend of the welfare state and market capitalism, proved successful in advancing the economies of most countries in the region. However, he goes on to note that by the 1970s such a blended system had proved a restraint rather than an incentive to growth. According to a reviewer for the Economist, Eichengreen's "economic history argues that Europe's institutions must adapt if the continent is to thrive in future." Among the causes for such a change of course is the increased competition not only from China, but also from the countries of Eastern Europe. The reviewer for the Economist felt that Eichengreen "crafts his arguments well" in this "excellent summary." Reviewing the same work in the New York Times Book Review, Sheri Berman commented: "Eichengreen argues that the key to understanding Europe's initial triumphs and later troubles lies in recognizing that the recipe for growth varies, depending on one's position in the economic race." Berman further observed: "Eichengreen backs up his argument with reams of data and detailed examples, yet he writes well enough to make his book accessible to general readers." Higher praise came from Foreign Affairs reviewer Richard N. Cooper, who termed The European Economy since 1945 a "superb overview of a half century of European economic development."

With European Monetary Unification: Theory, Practice, and Analysis, Eichengreen examines a further aspect of economics in Europe, the conversion to the single currency euro. Some of the essays in the work deal with the example of such a union as it took place in the United States. Overall, as Cooper noted in Foreign Affairs, "Eichengreen is sympathetic to the objective of a single European currency, but he suggests that Europeans should fasten their seat belts as they move forward." Anup Wadhawan, writing in the Southern Economic Journal, praised the "overall merit of the work." Similarly, in his Forging an Integrated Europe, edited with Jeffry Frieden, Eichengreen attempts to explicate the political as well as monetary union of the new Europe. American Political Science Review contributor Beth A. Simmons called that work "a valuable contribution to our understanding of the political economy of European integration."

Eichengreen, who served with the IMF during the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, has also produced well-received books dealing with such crises. His Capital Flows and Crises is part history of capital flow from the nineteenth century on, and part profile of individual financial crises from Europe to Argentina to Asia. He also presents chapters with lessons to be learned from such crises, discussing "the arguments for and against capital controls and proposes guidelines for emerging market economies with respect to financial market liberalization and currency systems," as Christopher J. Niggle wrote in the Journal of Economic Issues. Niggle concluded, "This book provides a very useful introduction to what experts know and don't know about capital controls, financial market liberalization, banking and currency crises, and related policy." Another work dealing with such times of fiscal turmoil, Toward a New International Financial Architecture: A Practical Post-Asia Agenda, provides a "sound analysis of the causes of the Asian financial crisis," according to Francis J. Gavin in Orbis. Gavin went on to note that "in order to prevent crises, [Eichengreen] recommends international financial standards that include recognized accounting and auditing procedures, creditor rights, protection against insider trading, and fair bankruptcy procedures."

The author furthers this same area of study with Financial Crises: And What to Do about Them, "an illuminating and timely book that will be of great value to many audiences," as Juan Paez-Farrell wrote in the Journal of Development Studies. The same reviewer commented that "Eichengreen rightly points out, most crises are the result of problems in fundamentals, and here it is governments and not multilateral institutions that must take the necessary action to avoid them."

Eichengreen has also written widely on the international monetary system, both in a historical context and in a contemporary setting. With Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression, 1919-1939, he examined the reinstitution and failure of the gold standard in the years between World War I and World War II. Roger Middleton, writing in Business History, felt that a "major contribution of this study is the explicit connection between the operation of the gold standard, the onset of the world depression in 1929 and the recovery after 1931 of those countries that chose to abandon gold." Middleton furthered termed the work "quite compelling reading." Lawrence H. Officer, reviewing Golden Fetters in the Business History Review, observed that it was "at once a ‘people's history,’ written at the level of the intelligent layperson, and a work for the economic historian." Officer further observed, "Eichengreen assembles a gigantic amount of material and synthesizes a tremendous amount of literature." Peter Alexis Gourevitch, writing in International Organization, had higher praise, calling the work "magisterial," while Alexander J. Field, reviewing the work in the Journal of Interdisciplinary History, found it a "stimulating book." Similarly, S.D. Chapman, writing in the Historian, felt Golden Fetters is a "major work [that] provides a striking reinterpretation of the role of the gold standard in the international economy during the interwar years."

With Globalizing Capital: A History of the International Monetary System, Eichengreen provides "the best short history currently available of the development of the international monetary system over the last 150 years or so," according to Business History writer Middleton. Eichengreen's history spans the years preceding World War I and the use of the gold standard, to those following World War II and the use of floating exchange rates. Middleton went on to observe that "Eichengreen provides a powerful case for why the ambitions for exchange rate stability … are likely to be frustrated and thus why, for the foreseeable future, floating rates will prevail." For Anna J. Schwartz, writing in the Independent Review, Globalizing Capital was an "accessible history of the international monetary system since 1850," while for Cooper, writing in Foreign Affairs, it was a book that "will become a classic, and deservedly so."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Political Science Review, September, 1995, Leon Hurwitz, review of The Political Economy of European Monetary Unification, p. 800; March, 2000, Beth A. Simmons, review of Forging an Integrated Europe, p. 235.

ASEAN Economic Bulletin, August, 2001, Jamus Jerome Lim, review of Toward a New International Financial Architecture: A Practical Post-Asia Agenda, p. 240.

Business History, July, 1993, Roger Middleton, review of Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression, 1919-1939, p. 138; July, 1994, Roger Middleton, review of Elusive Stability: Essays in the History of International Finance, 1919-1939, p. 141; January, 1998, Roger Middleton, review of Globalizing Capital: A History of the International Monetary System, p. 167.

Business History Review, summer, 1992, Lawrence H. Officer, review of Golden Fetters.

Business Week, March 22, 1999, "Eichenomics 101," p. 74.

Columbia Journal of World Business, fall, 1990, Robert P. Shay, review of The International Debt Crisis in Historical Perspective.

Economist, June 19, 1999, "Rise. Fall. Rise?," p. 10; January 27, 2007, "The Squeeze Is On; the Future of Europe's Economy," p. 84.

Finance Wire, April 13, 2004, "Ex-IMF Adviser Urges Controlled Yuan Float."

Foreign Affairs, March 1, 1997, Richard N. Cooper, review of Globalizing Capital, p. 176; May 1, 1998, Richard N. Cooper, review of European Monetary Unification: Theory, Practice, and Analysis, p. 134; January 1, 2007, Richard N. Cooper, review of The European Economy since 1945: Coordinated Capitalism and Beyond, p. 158.

Growth and Change, fall, 1995, Charles Hultman, review of The Political Economy of European Monetary Unification.

Historian, summer, 1993, S.D. Chapman, review of Golden Fetters; summer, 1998, Gary D. Allinson, review of The Reconstruction of the International Economy, 1945-1960.

Independent Review, winter, 1998, Anna J. Schwartz, review of Globalizing Capital, p. 447.

Industrial and Labor Relations Review, April, 1990, George R. Boyer, review of Interwar Unemployment in International Perspective, p. 489; July, 1995, Peter Auer, review of Labor and an Integrated Europe, p. 868.

International Organization, spring, 1996, Peter Alexis Gourevitch, review of Golden Fetters.

Journal of Development Studies, February, 2003, Juan Paez-Farrell, review of Financial Crises: And What to Do about Them, p. 212.

Journal of Economic Issues, September, 2004, Christopher J. Niggle, review of Capital Flows and Crises, p. 878.

Journal of Interdisciplinary History, summer, 1994, Alexander J. Field, review of Golden Fetters.

New York Times, April 29, 1999, Michael M. Weinstein, "Economic Scene; a Soft-Spoken Plan for Global Reform That Lacks a Big Stick."

New York Times Book Review, March 25, 2007, Sheri Berman, "Boom and Bust," p. 21.

Orbis, spring, 2000, Francis J. Gavin, "Economists to the Rescue."

Reference & Research Book News, February, 2007, review of The European Economy since 1945; May, 2007, review of Toward an East Asian Exchange Rate Regime.

Southern Economic Journal, October, 1993, Robert M. Darin, review of Monetary Regime Transformations, p. 510; April, 1996, Kevin Dowd, review of International Monetary Arrangements for the 21st Century, p. 1104; January, 1999, Anup Wadhawan, review of European Monetary Unification, p. 648.