The End of Influence: What Happens When Other Countries Have the Money - Hardcover

Cohen, Stephen S.; DeLong, J. Bradford

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0465018769 ISBN 13: 9780465018765

Publisher: Basic Books, 2010

Synopsis

At the end of World War II, the United States had all the money—and all the power. Now, America finds itself cash poor, and to a great extent power follows money. In The End of Influence, renowned economic analysts Stephen S. Cohen and J. Bradford DeLong explore the grave consequences this loss will have for America’s place in the world.

America, Cohen and DeLong argue, will no longer be the world’s hyperpower. It will no longer wield soft cultural power or dictate a monolithic foreign policy. More damaging, though, is the blow to the world’s ability to innovate economically, financially, and politically. Cohen and DeLong also explore American’s complicated relationship with China, the misunderstood role of sovereign wealth funds, and the return of state-led capitalism.

An essential read for anyone interested in how global economics and finance interact with national policy, The End of Influence explains the far-reaching and potentially long-lasting but little-noted consequences of our great fiscal crisis.

About this title

About the Author

Stephen S. Cohen is a professor in the Graduate School and co-director of BRIE (the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy) at the University of California, Berkeley, and Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. He lives in San Francisco.

J. Bradford DeLong is a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He also writes the widely read economics blog Brad DeLong’s Semi-Daily Journal. He lives in Berkeley.

Reviews

In this reasoned chronicle of worldwide fiscal and cultural influence from pre-WWI to the present, Berkeley academics Cohen and DeLong (Macroeconomics) measure the rise and decline of U.S. prestige, concluding that the era of U.S. dominance is over: "The United States will continue to be a world leader... But it will no longer be the boss." Presenting an in-depth examination of deficits, export policies, sovereign wealth funds, the U.S. Department of Defense, and foreign expansion (as well as caveats galore), Cohen and DeLong craft a chilling portrait of the country's accelerating fiscal woes: "In every year since 1976, the United States has run international trade deficits that collectively add up to 7 trillion. More than 70 percent of that 7 trillion has been added since 2000." Pursuing the causes underlying the current worldwide economic crisis-the financial rules and lack thereof-Cohen and DeLong depict the effort to restore the global economy as a massive task, fraught with peril and the specter of unintended consequences; growing economic inequity between the U.S. and China, for instance, represents "a financial balance of terror." Though most appropriate for fiscal wonks, Cohen and DeLong's analysis is clear and concise enough for the concerned layperson. END

Edition details

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0465018769
• ISBN 13: 9780465018765
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 176