Under near zero United States (US) interest rates, the international dollar standard malfunctions. Emerging markets with naturally higher interest rates are swamped with "hot money" inflows. Emerging market central banks intervene to prevent their currencies from rising precipitously. They...

In the currency wars of the 1920s and 1930s, various nations fell off the gold standard and in so doing experienced deep devaluations. But under the postwar dollar standard, the central position of the US was key to maintaining the peace, until the Bretton Woods system of fixed dollar exchange...