Dollar signs: The myth of American decline and the future of world order 

February 20, 2024, 6:00 – 7:00 p.m.
ESMT Berlin, Schlossplatz 1, 10178 Berlin

This event will take place on campus and online. The registration to attend the event in person is closed. To attend the event online, please register here


In this ESMT Open Lecture, Mark Copelovitch, the Axel Springer Fellow at the American Academy Berlin and professor of political science and public affairs at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, will discuss the dollar's continued dominance in the global economy and its implications for US economic policy, transatlantic relations, and the US-China rivalry. Copelovitch will explain the ongoing sources of the dollar’s global dominance and the economic and political reasons why neither the euro nor the renminbi are serious challengers. He will explain why recognizing the gap between this reality and the frequent rhetoric of the looming end of the dollar’s dominance is important for understanding the future of US foreign and economic policy, as well as the future of power and hegemony in the international system.


Speaker:

Mark Copelovitch is a professor of political science and public affairs at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Jean Monnet Chair in the European Union and the Global Economy. Copelovitch studies international political economy, with a focus on the politics of international money and finance. His research explores the political causes and consequences of economic shocks and the politics of international organizations, including the IMF and the EU. He is the author of two books, The International Monetary Fund in the Global Economy: Banks, Bonds, and Bailouts (Cambridge University Press, 2010) and Banks on the Brink: Global Capital, Securities Markets, and the Political Roots of Financial Crises (with David Singer, Cambridge, 2020). Copelovitch is the Axel Springer Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin and a visiting researcher in the Transformations of Democracy Research Group at the WZB. 

Moderator:

Assistant Professor Jan Sebastian Nimczik joined ESMT Berlin in 2019, specializing in economics. Nimczik’s expertise lies in labor market analysis, particularly examining the internal organization and roles of firms, labor market outcomes, and inequality. His research also delves into the effects of immigration and worker mobility on job finding and economic development. Nimczik's contributions have been recognized in esteemed economic journals, including Review of Economic Studies and The Economic Journal. 

Nimczik has a keen interest in leveraging data for economic insights. At ESMT, he teaches courses on data science, machine learning, and causal inference.