REGISTER
The global dominance of the U.S. dollar has long shaped international trade, financial markets, and geopolitical power. Amid shifting global dynamics and the rapid development of stablecoins and other digital assets, new questions are emerging around the structure and evolution of dollar hegemony. How are technological innovation and geopolitical change reshaping the international monetary system, and what possibilities lie ahead?
This panel will bring together scholars and industry voices to examine the foundation of U.S. monetary influence and the role of financial innovation in an evolving global economy. The panel will feature Barry Eichengreen, George C. Pardee & Helen N. Pardee Chair and Distinguished Professor of Economics and Political Science at UC Berkeley, Rohan Kekre, Assistant Professor of Finance at UC Berkeley Haas, and Chenzi Xu, Assistant Professor of Economics at UC Berkeley. Brian Judge, Research Director for the UC Berkeley Program on Finance and Democracy at BESI, will moderate.
Matrix on Point is a discussion series promoting focused, cross-disciplinary conversations on today’s most pressing issues. Offering opportunities for scholarly exchange and interaction, each Matrix On Point features the perspectives of leading scholars and specialists from different disciplines, followed by an open conversation. These thought-provoking events are free and open to the public.
Co-sponsored by the Clausen Center, the Institute for International Studies, the Berkeley Economy and Society Initiative (BESI) Program on Finance and Democracy, and the UC Departments of Economics and Political Science.
Panelists
Barry Eichengreen is George C. Pardee & Helen N. Pardee Chair and Distinguished Professor of Economics and Political Science at UC Berkeley, where he has taught since 1987. He is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (Cambridge, Massachusetts) and Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (London, England). In 1997-98 he was Senior Policy Advisor at the International Monetary Fund. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (class of 1997). Professor Eichengreen is the convener of the Bellagio Group of academics and economic officials and chair of the Academic Advisory Committee of the Peterson Institute of International Economics. He has held Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellowships and has been a fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (Palo Alto) and the Institute for Advanced Study (Berlin). He is a regular monthly columnist for Project Syndicate.
His books include The Populist Temptation: Economic Grievance and Political Reaction in the Modern Era (2018), How Global Currencies Work: Past, Present, and Future, with Livia Chitu and Arnaud Mehl, (2017), The Korean Economy: From a Miraculous Past to a Sustainable Future (Harvard East Asian Monographs) with Wonhyuk Lim, Yung Chul Park and Dwight H. Perkins, (2015), Renminbi Internationalization: Achievements, Prospects, and Challenges, co-edited with Masahiro Kawai, (2015), Hall of Mirrors: The Great Depression, The Great Recession, and the Uses-and Misuses-of History, (2015). He was awarded the Economic History Association’s Jonathan R.T. Hughes Prize for Excellence in Teaching in 2002 and the University of California at Berkeley Social Science Division’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 2004. He is also the recipient of a doctor honoris causa from the American University in Paris.
Rohan Kekre’s research interests are at the intersection of macroeconomics and finance, with a particular focus on international finance. Among other topics, he has studied the drivers of exchange rates and interest rates, the transmission of monetary policy through financial markets, and the unique roles of the U.S. in the international financial system. His papers have been published in leading journals such as American Economic Review, Econometrica, and Review of Economic Studies. Prior to joining UC Berkeley Haas, Kekre served on the faculty at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He received his AB, AM, and PhD from Harvard University.
Chenzi Xu is an assistant professor of economics with research at the intersection of finance, international economics, and economic history. Her work focuses on the relationship between financial institutions and the flow of capital and goods, with a particular interest in understanding how historical events shape and impact modern outcomes. Prior to joining UC Berkeley, she was an assistant professor of finance at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. She holds a BA from Harvard in economics and an MPhil from the University of Cambridge in economic history, where she was the William Shirley Scholar at Pembroke College and a Cambridge Overseas Trust Scholar.
Brian Judge is the research director of the Berkeley Program on Finance and Democracy at the Berkeley Economy and Society Initiative (BESI), where he leads research on how finance drives inequality and erodes democratic governance. His current work focuses on central bank digital currencies and using large language models to demystify public budget documents. His first book, Democracy in Default: Finance and the Rise of Neoliberalism in America (Columbia University Press, 2024), explores how finance reshaped American political economy. His next book project, The Economy of Knowledge, examines how economic knowledge both constructs and constrains what can be known about what we call “the economy.” He has published in Policy & Society, New Political Economy, and the Cambridge Journal of Economics. Brian holds a Ph.D. in political science from UC Berkeley and was a policy fellow at the Center for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence. Before academia, he was a portfolio analyst at a hedge fund.