Review by Paul Krugman, “The American Way of Economic War”

Suppose that a company in Peru wants to do business with a company in Malaysia. It should not be hard for the firms to make a deal. Sending money across national borders is generally straightforward, and so is the international transfer of large quantities of data.

But there’s a catch: whether or not the companies realize it, their transactions of both financial information and data will almost certainly be indirect and will probably pass through the United States or institutions over which the U.S. government has substantial control. When they do, Washington will have the power to monitor the exchange and, if desired, stop it in its tracks—to stop, in other words, the Peruvian company and the Malaysian company from doing business with each other. In fact, the United States could prevent many Peruvian and Malaysian companies from trading goods in general, largely cutting the countries off from the international economy.

Part of what undergirds this power is well known: much of the world’s trade is conducted in dollars. The dollar is one of the few currencies that almost all major banks will accept, and certainly the most widely used one. …

Read the full text at Foreign Affairs.

Other Writing:

Essay

Three Moral Economies of Data – with Nils Gilman

In October 24, Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, gave an epochal speech to a conference of European data officials. Many outside the technology industry have warned that we are sleepwalking our way through a vast transformation of politics, economy and society. Our world is being remade around us by data and by algorithms. Tools ...
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Chapter in an Edited Volume

“Transnational Actors and the Transatlantic Relationship in E-Commerce” in The Negotiation of the Safe Harbor Arrangement, Creating a Transatlantic Marketplace – ed. Michelle Egan

In the recent past, scholars have sought better to understand the evolving EU-US relationship, both in its own right, and as an important example of emerging forms of international governance.1 Particular attention has been paid to the important role that transnational actors have begun to play in this relationship. Business, consumer, labour and environmental interests ...
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