A remarkably deft work of storytelling that reveals how the blueprint for the postwar economic order was actually drawn.

A fascinating intellectual history of monetary nationalism from the ancient world to the present exploring why, in its modern incarnation, it represents the single greatest threat to globalization.

Over the past two decades, another form of economic exchange besides imports and exports has risen to a level of vastly greater significance and political concern: the purchase and sale of financial assets across borders.

Benn Steil's latest Forbes op-ed, co-authored with Dinah Walker, shows why Greece may turn out to be a deciding factor in the German elections. While it is widely believed that a fresh mandate for Chancellor Merkel means more robust German involvement to end the eurozone crisis, they show why the loss of her FDP coalition partner could mean the opposite.

Benn Steil takes a critical look at the longstanding efforts of former IMF historian James Boughton to disparage the evidence that the Fund's founding architect, FDR Treasury official Harry Dexter White, engaged in espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is, with the European Commission and the European Central Bank, part of the so-called troika responsible for setting the conditions that the Greek government must meet to secure continued official financial support. Greece is the eurozone's largest IMF program beneficiary, with about €28 billion in outstanding loans from the IMF.

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Benn Steil's op-ed for Paul Solman's PBS Newshour site examines Keynes's lifelong obsession with the mysteries and menaces of money.

Benn Steil's op-ed asks whether Germany is making the same errors in managing the eurozone crisis today as the United States made with its wartime allies at Bretton Woods in 1944.

This module, with Teaching Notes by author and CFR Senior Fellow and Director of International Economics Benn Steil, features discussion questions, essay questions, activities, and additional materials for educators to supplement the use of the CFR book The Battle of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the Making of a New World Order in the classroom. In this book, Dr. Steil challenges the notion that Bretton Woods was the product of an amiable Anglo-American collaboration, and explains that it was in reality part of a much more ambitious geopolitical agenda hatched within President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Treasury and aimed at eliminating Great Britain as an economic and political rival.

Benn Steil and Dinah Walker explain the market massacre following Ben Bernanke's press conference on June 19. Bernanke's repeated statements that a key tool of current Fed policy, asset purchases, would be "calibrated" to employment data, each month's publication of which can imply a major shift in the unemployment trend line, suggests that Fed tightening could begin as early as the middle of next year—nearly a year and half earlier than the Fed had suggested in its pledge statement last fall.

Benn Steil's article in the June 2013 edition of History Today takes a critical look at John Maynard Keynes's performance as a diplomat during World War II, concluding that Britain had made a mistake sending him to Washington. His temperament and overinvestment in his personal legacy resulted in Britain paying a high political and economic price for American financial assistance.

Benn Steil's op-ed for Paul Solman's PBS The Business Desk site looks critically at calls for "a new Bretton Woods." He argues that many of the critical precepts behind the 1944 American Bretton Woods blueprint were overturned by the Truman Administration a mere three years later, and that the operation of the Bretton Woods monetary system was far briefer and more troubled than is typically reckoned.

Benn Steil and Dinah Walker explain why the Fed's massive holdings of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) are distorting its thinking about the conduct of monetary policy going forward. They propose a novel plan to rectify this, in which the Fed swaps its MBS with the Treasury in return for Treasury securities, which the Fed can sell as part of a normal "exit" from monetary stimulus.

Benn Steil explains in his column for Dow Jones' Financial News why the latest craze in monetary policymaking—targeting nominal output—has no staying power.

The debt crisis that has hammered southern Europe since 2010 will have long-lived economic effects, despite the moderation in Spanish and Italian government borrowing costs since the European Central Bank's "Outright Monetary Transactions" initiative last September.

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Benn Steil offers a neat and innovative way for the Federal Reserve to reverse its monetary stimulus efforts as the economy recovers, without the worrisome economic and political consequences of having to sell off its massive stock of mortgage-backed securities.

Benn Steil's op-ed on Bloomberg Echoes describes the drama surrounding the collapse of dollar-starved Britain's empire in the wake of WWII.

Benn Steil's Wall Street Journal op-ed explains the unique historical circumstances in which the Bretton Woods international monetary system emerged in 1944, and why calls for "a new Bretton Woods" today will go unsatisfied.

FDR Treasury official Harry Dexter White was the leading architect of the Bretton Woods international monetary and financial system. But he was also a vital agent for Soviet intelligence in the 1930s and '40s. This article brings to bear startling new archival evidence to illuminate his motives.

Benn Steil's Wall Street Journal Europe op-ed, co-authored with Dinah Walker, argues that the Bank of England is getting "Libored"—that is, misled and manipulated—by the banks benefiting from its Funding for Lending Scheme. The Fed, which has shown interest in the scheme, should beware.

Benn Steil's column in Dow Jones' Financial News, co-authored with Dinah Walker, shows why last March's Greek debt restructuring left Greece in poor shape to avoid financial collapse

A remarkably deft work of storytelling that reveals how the blueprint for the postwar economic order was actually drawn.

Benn Steil's Forbes op-ed, co-authored with Dinah Walker and Romil Chouhan, shows why President Obama's touting of renewable energy as a job-creator is misguided.