International Cooperation and Central Banks

2016 ◽  
pp. 363-394
Author(s):  
Harold James
Keyword(s):  
Gold Standard ◽  
International Monetary System ◽  
Central Banks ◽  
Monetary Integration ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
European Monetary ◽  
International Context ◽  
Bretton Woods ◽  
Monetary System ◽  
Definition Of

Why do central banks attempt to cooperate with other central banks? Why should those political systems (in practice, in the advanced modern industrial world, democratic states), to whom ultimately the central banks are accountable, accept a cooperative strategy of the central banks? What overall gain do they expect to achieve? The answers clearly depend on the definition of the fundamental tasks of central banks, and thus on how cooperation might be envisaged as a tool in the accomplishment of those goals. The purposes and functions of central banks, however, have changed dramatically over the course of time, in accordance with the changing international monetary system from the gold standard, through the Bretton Woods system to the post-1973 order, including European monetary integration. This chapter reviews the pattern, motivation, and record of central bank cooperation in the broader international context of debate about macroeconomic cooperation from the nineteenth century onwards.

scholarly journals The Vatican’s Monetary Wisdom

2021 ◽  
pp. 457-459
Author(s):  
Robert A. Sirico
Keyword(s):  
Interest Rates ◽  
Gold Standard ◽  
Central Banks ◽  
Nixon Administration ◽  
Speculative Bubbles ◽  
Bretton Woods ◽  
Financial Deregulation ◽  
Monetary System ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common

On Monday, the Vatican released an 18-page document titled «Toward Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of a Global Public Authority.» Since then, it has been celebrated by advocates of bigger government the world over. What’s ignored is that the document —released to stimulate debate, not offer official doctrine— embraces a sound economic theory concerning the cause of the world financial crisis: the breakdown of the postwar Bretton Woods monetary system and the unleashing of fiat currencies and central-bank printing presses. Let’s look at a representative passage, while keeping in mind several important markers: 1971 was the year that the Nixon administration killed the gold standard, and along with it Bretton Woods and hard currencies; in the early 1980s, financial deregulation in many countries removed the last major  barriers to virtually unlimited amounts of credit; and the 1990s was the decade when the drive to suppress interest rates became the common policy of central banks around the world. Since the 1990s, we have seen that money and credit instruments worldwide have grown more rapidly than revenue, even adjusting for current prices. From this came the formation of pockets of excessive liquidity and speculative bubbles which later turned into a series of solvency and confidence crises that have spread and followed one another over the years.

The Crisis of the Bretton Woods Monetary System and the Beginning of European Monetary Cooperation

2021 ◽  
pp. 98-106
Author(s):  
Oksana G. Lekarenko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Monetary Union ◽  
Monetary Integration ◽  
European Monetary ◽  
European Currency ◽  
Monetary Cooperation ◽  
Bretton Woods ◽  
Monetary System ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Monetary Order

The article aims to identify the impact of the crisis of the Bretton Woods monetary system on the beginning of European monetary cooperation. Russian scholars' publications on European monetary integration usually examine in detail the internal prerequisites for the emergence of the Werner Plan and only sketch the external environment. Drawing on available European and American sources, this research provides a more nuanced picture of the origins of European monetary cooperation in the context of a general collapse of the post-war international monetary order. The article begins with the characteristic of the main features of the Bretton Woods monetary system. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the intrinsic contradictions of the Bretton Woods mechanism, such as the problem of liquidity, confidence in the key currencies, and the adjustment mechanism, generated numerous monetary crises. All efforts to reform the international monetary system stalled because of disagreements between countries with surplus and deficit payment balances. The research also focuses on the US monetary policy. As the US dollar was the main reserve currency, the stability of the entire monetary system depended on its position. Since the late 1960s, conflicts over monetary issues developed between the United States and Western European countries, culminating in the Nixon administration's unilateral decision to abolish the gold standard in August 1971. Monetary crises and the weakness of the dollar pushed the countries of the European Economic Community to develop their own currency grouping. The article analyses the Werner Plan of 1970 that proposed the creation of an Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) with a single European currency as the ultimate goal. Based on fixed exchange rates between European currencies, the EMU represented a regional replica of the Bretton Woods system. The single European currency was seen by Europeans as an alternative to the dollar and the unpredictable American policy. The author concludes that the end of transatlantic monetary cooperation gave an additional impetus to the development of European monetary integration. Although first European efforts to create the EMU had failed because of the different approaches of France and the Federal Republic of Germany as well as the economic crisis of the early 1970s, the Werner Plan marked a crucial phase in the history of European integration. The Werner Report became a blueprint for the European Monetary System (EMS) of the late 1970s. The success of the EMS paved the way for the creation of the European Monetary Union envisaged in the Maastricht Treaty of 1991 establishing the European Union and the adoption of a single European currency - the euro.

scholarly journals Le système monétaire européen à la lumière de l’expérience et de la théorie monétaires

2005 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 465-474 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Dehem
Keyword(s):  
Gold Standard ◽  
International Monetary System ◽  
Macroeconomic Policies ◽  
Monetary Policies ◽  
Bretton Woods ◽  
The Past ◽  
Monetary System ◽  
The Sixties ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One

In the light of monetary experience and theory, the EMS appears to be unsustainable. Monetary history of the past sixty years shows that every attempt to stabilise the international monetary System has been frustrated as a consequence of divergent egocentric monetary policies. The breakdown of the rules of the gold standard game in the twenties, as well as the use of money as an instrument in national macroeconomic policies under the Bretton Woods regime have ultimately led to the demise of the fixed exchange rates System. In the sixties, European views on monetary policies were quite divergent, but in the seventies institutional attempts were made to bring them apparently into line. The "snake" arrangements, initiated in 1972, soon degenerated. The more ambitious attempt of 1979, the institutionally more elaborate EMS, suffers from the same basic weakness as all the previous ones. It lacks a common monetary standard, such as the one proposed in the 1975 Ail-Saints Manifesto. Such a standard is a necessary and a sufficient condition for a sustainable common monetary System.

scholarly journals The evolution of the Offshore US-Dollar System: past, present and four possible futures

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 767-783 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steffen Murau ◽  
Joe Rini ◽  
Armin Haas
Keyword(s):  
Hierarchical Structure ◽  
International Monetary System ◽  
Central Banks ◽  
Bretton Woods ◽  
Monetary System ◽  
The Us ◽  
Money Creation ◽  
Us Dollar ◽  
To Come

AbstractLittle has contributed more to the emergence of today's world of financial globalization than the setup of the international monetary system. In its current shape, it has a hierarchical structure with the US-Dollar (USD) at the top and various other monetary areas forming a multilayered periphery to it. A key feature of the system is the creation of USD offshore – a feature that in the 1950s and 60s developed in co-evolution with the Bretton Woods System and in the 1970s replaced it. Since the 2007–9 Financial Crisis, this ‘Offshore US-Dollar System’ has been backstopped by the Federal Reserve's network of swap lines which are extended to other key central banks. This systemic evolution may continue in the decades to come, but other systemic arrangements are possible as well and have historical precedents. This article discusses four trajectories that would lead to different setups of the international monetary system by 2040, taking into account how its hierarchical structure and the role of offshore credit money creation may evolve. In addition to a continuation of USD hegemony, we present the emergence of competing monetary blocs, the formation of an international monetary federation and the disintegration into an international monetary anarchy.

Robert Triffin

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivo Maes ◽  
Ilaria Pasotti
Keyword(s):  
Vietnam War ◽  
International Monetary System ◽  
Monetary Integration ◽  
Monetary Reform ◽  
International Liquidity ◽  
Bretton Woods ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Monetary System ◽  
Triffin Dilemma ◽  
European Currency Unit

This book provides an intellectual biography of Robert Triffin. Triffin (1911–1993) played a key role in the international monetary debates in the postwar period. He became famous with trenchant analyses of the vulnerabilities of the international monetary system that was dependent on a national currency for its international liquidity (the Triffin dilemma), predicting the end of the Bretton Woods system. Triffin was a child of the interwar period, marked by the Great Depression and the rise of fascism. He became not only an eminent academic but also an influential policy adviser. In the mid-1940s he worked at the Federal Reserve, participating in several monetary reform missions in Latin America. Thereafter, Triffin played an important role in the creation of the European Payments Union. In his later academic life, Triffin put forward proposals for reforming the international monetary system. But because he doubted that they would come to fruition, he also developed plans for regional monetary integration, particularly in Europe, where he became the monetary adviser of Jean Monnet. With proposals for a European Reserve Fund and a European currency unit, he became one of the intellectual fathers of Europe’s monetary union. Throughout his life Triffin remained faithful to the ideals of his youth. The young Triffin was indignant about the Versailles Treaty, while the old Triffin fulminated against the Vietnam War. For him, economics was a way to contribute to a better world. He was strongly attached to his independence and the pursuit of a better and more peaceful world. He was a monk in economist’s clothing.

scholarly journals A Model of the International Monetary System*

2017 ◽  
Vol 133 (1) ◽  
pp. 295-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Farhi ◽  
Matteo Maggiori
Keyword(s):  
Simple Model ◽  
Gold Standard ◽  
Supply And Demand ◽  
International Monetary System ◽  
Rate System ◽  
Monetary System ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
Triffin Dilemma ◽  
World Supply

AbstractWe propose a simple model of the international monetary system. We study the world supply and demand for reserve assets denominated in different currencies under a variety of scenarios: a hegemon versus a multipolar world; abundant versus scarce reserve assets; and a gold exchange standard versus a floating rate system. We rationalize the Triffin dilemma, which posits the fundamental instability of the system, as well as the common prediction regarding the natural and beneficial emergence of a multipolar world, the Nurkse warning that a multipolar world is more unstable than a hegemon world, and the Keynesian argument that a scarcity of reserve assets under a gold standard or at the zero lower bound is recessionary. Our analysis is both positive and normative.

scholarly journals Le système monétaire européen : Le point de vue européen

2005 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 533-547 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michel Lelart
Keyword(s):  
Interest Rates ◽  
International Monetary System ◽  
European Monetary System ◽  
The United States ◽  
European Monetary ◽  
International Capital Markets ◽  
Monetary System ◽  
American Interest ◽  
International Environment ◽  
The Stability

The evolution of the international monetary System prompted the nine members of the E.E.C. to establish a European Monetary System. The new statutes of the I.M.F. have in fact legalized the practice of flexible exchange rates and sanctioned the dollar's inconvertibility while eliminating the role of gold. Further, the increasing importance of the international capital markets fosters the unlimited expansion of international liquidities. it is in response to this context then that Europe seeks to create a zone of stability and to manage its own international tender in accordance with rules that it has set for itself. The author draws a positive conclusion as the System has operated without major problems so far. Nevertheless, difficulties remain: the international environment has not improved given the abrupt strengthening of the dollar and the increase in American interest rates. In addition, progress with regard to cooperation among the Nine remains slow and political change in France makes any prognosis respecting the future of the European Monetary System difficult. It was anticipated that the System would be Consolidated rapidly. It would in that event contribute more effectively to the stability of the international monetary System. It could, on the other hand, sharpen competition between Europe and the United States, between the Ecu and S.D.Rs. and between the European Monetary Fund and the International Monetary Fund.

A Search for Solvency: Bretton Woods and the International Monetary System, 1941-1971

1977 ◽  
Vol 82 (4) ◽  
pp. 1098
Author(s):  
Warren F. Kimball ◽  
Alfred E. Eckes ◽  
Joseph P. Lash
Keyword(s):  
International Monetary System ◽  
Bretton Woods ◽  
Monetary System
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document