But beneath this sense of calmness is a tense undercurrent. There is an underlying anxiety that prevails beyond the realm of economics, for example in relation to issues of international security, environmental change, and the global spread of disease. Despite the tremendous progress that has been achieved in many of these areas through international treaties and institutional efforts globally, anxieties remain. Extreme views are becoming more prevalent in both side of the aisle, and manifests in the form of backlash against conventional wisdom, and the establishments. We ought to be circumspect in expressing our views. As individuals and institutions that have influence to mould public thought and perception, we have the added 4/8  BIS Central Banker's Speeches  responsibility to be balanced. We should not be too eager to discard all wisdom that have been carefully amassed over many years but at the same willing to adapt to new thinking, new circumstances and new possibilities. As policy-makers and economists, these contemporary issues confronting the field of economics are indeed reinvigorating. New rules are being made. Old rules revisited. The contradictory forces that I mentioned earlier, are causing great policy tensions. The policies that have been implemented and experimented in recent years by policy-makers across the world might themselves appear in contradictions. And the fact that the performance so far has been mixed does not invoke confidence in some of the policy prescriptions.
Christian Noyer: Spheres of influence in the international monetary system Speech by Mr Christian Noyer, Governor of the Bank of France and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements, at the Round-table 1 “Fragmentation Risk in Financial Services: A Retreat From Globalization?”, 21st Conference of Montreal, Montreal, 8 June 2015. *  *  *  For many casual observers, there is a close link between money and geopolitics. Historically, money is an attribute of the Sovereign. It can easily be seen as an instrument to project power and influence. There are numerous instances over the last two millennia where monetary power has been used to finance military expansion or, more simply, to assert and exercise government authority. I would not go as far as Michael Bordo and Angela Redish who state, in a recent paper, that “the chronology of monetary history is driven by warfare”; but there is some historical truth in their assertion. Today, however, we live in a regime of fiat money with independent Central Banks in most advanced and emerging economies. Money is not supposed to serve any other purpose than help the economy to function and stabilize through its three main – technical – attributes: as a medium of exchange, a unit of account and a store of value. Yet, the language of geopolitics still permeates the discussion on the international monetary system. Eminent authorities, for instance, casually talk about “currency wars”.