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Expert Bio
Brad W. Setser is the Whitney Shepardson senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). His expertise includes global trade and capital flows, financial vulnerability analysis and sovereign debt restructuring. He regularly blogs at Follow the Money.
Setser served as a senior advisor to the United States Trade Representative from 2021 to 2022, where he worked on the resolution of a number of trade disputes. He had previously served as the deputy assistant secretary for international economic analysis in the U.S. Treasury from 2011 to 2015, where he worked on Europe’s financial crisis, currency policy, financial sanctions, commodity shocks, and Puerto Rico’s debt crisis, and as a director for international economics on the staff of the National Economic Council and the National Security Council.
He is the author of Sovereign Wealth and Sovereign Power (CFR, 2008) and the coauthor, with Nouriel Roubini, of Bailouts and Bail-ins: Responding to Financial Crises in Emerging Economies (Peterson Institute, 2004). His work has been published in Foreign Affairs, Finance and Development, Global Governance and Georgetown Journal of International Law, among others.
Setser was a senior fellow at CFR from 2016 to 2020, a fellow from 2007 to 2009, and an international affairs fellow in 2003. He also has been a visiting scholar at the International Monetary Fund. He holds a BA from Harvard University, a masters from Sciences-Po Paris, and an MA and PhD in international relations from Oxford University.
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Many central banks are navigating turbulent waters as they battle inflation, a strengthening dollar, and an energy crunch. Should they coordinate policy?
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Struggling to make ends meet as inflation and interest rates climb, many emerging markets will have to pursue difficult debt restructuring with international creditors.
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The next U.S. president will face a teetering global economy and an anemic recovery at home. More government support in the United States and abroad is needed.
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The coronavirus pandemic has forced countries around the world to take steps to weather the economic shock, often including borrowing. Multilateral institutions, the United States, and China all should do more to help low-income countries manage the debt burden.
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The U.S. Federal Reserve is using creative means to counter the economic shock caused by the global coronavirus pandemic, but those measures must be matched by aggressive fiscal action.
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The Trump administration has declared China a currency manipulator, but what that means for the ongoing trade war is far from clear.
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The U.S. Department of the Treasury should transform its foreign currency report so it can be used as a tool to combat currency manipulation. This would be an important step toward a more balanced global economy with fewer persistent deficits and surpluses.
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CFR experts discuss the data worth tracking in the year ahead.
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A new report from the Center for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), co-authored by Brad W. Setser and Gregory Makoff.
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The best single measure of the resilience of an oil- or gas-exporting economy in the face of swings in the global oil price is its external breakeven price: the oil price that covers its import bill.
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The recent vote may not advance Puerto Rican statehood, but it may focus attention on its heavy debts and exposure to upcoming U.S. health-care and budget measures.
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An analysis of revenue projections for the proposed border adjustment tax.
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