Monetary System Stability as a Precondition for Local and International Order

Institute of International Monetary Research | Novels can tell us a lot about the world, and about a time. At the beginning of the Nobel Prize winner José Saramago’s The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis – the avatar of Pessoa, the poet not the LSE economist for whom Portugal can also hope great things – the eponymous hero is disembarking in Lisbon after a long journey. Away for 16 years, he lacks local currency but that doesn’t matter at all for the porter who helps with the luggage. Not only a particular world but also a greater truth is captured in how this is described: “I have only English money, Oh, that’s fine, and he saw ten shillings placed into his right hand, coins that shone more brightly than the sun itself” (my emphasis). READ MORE