The Future of the Dollar: The Dragon in the Room

• In Event: International Political Economy Virtual Poster Session

Abstract

Every time the dollar depreciates we see a flood of news articles about the end of dollar hegemony and the rise of the RMB, but scholars have largely shown empirically that the RMB will not take over the dollar as the top global currency for quite some time, if at all. One issue is that many of these authors are measuring currency internationalization in different ways. After analyzing the literature, we have developed a more encompassing quantitative measure of internationalization. To explain the process behind changes in internationalization, we design a new actor-centric framework that explains currency internationalization in a holistic way and that allows for incrementalism and identifies pockets of dollar displacement.

Authors

• Sarah Sklar, Boston University

• William N Kring