Eswar Prasad

Global economic power is shifting, liberal market-oriented democracies face growing domestic turmoil, and international trade and financial integration is crumbling. How did we get here??In The Doom Loop, economist Eswar Prasad argues that the very forces that we long believed could stabilize the world order are fueling its destabilization. Rather than promoting shared prosperity, globalization has instead deepened economic inequality, stoked political backlash, and prompted escalating trade wars. Institutions like the International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization, founded to foster international cooperation, have failed to adapt to twenty-first-century realities. The rise of ‘middle power’ countries like India, Brazil, and Indonesia once suggested a stable multipolar future, but today, such nations are increasingly forced to pick sides as the United States and China fight for global dominance.Prasad argues that we are caught in a destructive feedback loop between economics, domestic politics, and geopolitics. The Doom Loop offers a clear-eyed and bracing account of a world spiraling into disorder, and makes it clear that old solutions cannot pull us out—we need radically new solutions to solve the world’s problems

The world of finance is on the cusp of a major disruption that will affect corporations, bankers, states?indeed, all of us. As Eswar Prasad makes clear, the end of physical cash will fundamentally rewrite how we live. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies are just the beginning: spurred by their emergence, central banks will increasingly develop their own, more stable digital currencies. Meanwhile, cryptocurrencies themselves will evolve dramatically as global corporations like Meta, Apple, and Amazon join the game. Prasad shows how these innovations will redefine the very concept of money, unbundling its traditional functions. This transformation promises greater efficiency and flexibility, but also carries the risk of instability, lack of accountability, and erosion of privacy. A lucid, visionary work, The Future of Money shows how to maximize the best and guard against the worst of what is to come.