Andreas Steiner assesses the relationships between global imbalances, financial crises, and central bank policies, with a specific focus on their reserves. His combination of a strictly international perspective with an analysis based on empirical research enables him to develop an analytical model that emphasizes interactions among individual central banks. With this innovative approach Steiner develops a new method for defining an optimal demand for reserves. By means of its framework through which issues of global disequilibria can be addressed, Global Imbalances, Financial Crises, and Central Bank Policies describes implications for financial reforms that might ultimately be more important than its empirical findings.