Sudip Bandyopadhyay’s Blog

Athenian owls, Roman denarii, British sovereigns, US dollars.  There have been many pseudo reserve currencies down the ages.  Now the governor of the People’s Bank of China has called for a new global currency “disconnected from individual nations”.  Russia, too, wants to move away from a world dominated by the dollar. Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev [...]

“History demonstrates conclusively that a modern economy cannot grow if its financial system is not operating effectively.” So said Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve chairman, last  week in London.  It sounds obvious, but it is also fundamental - and for three reasons. First, banks allow people to pay each other easily - without them commerce would [...]