Robert Triffin, Japan and the quest for Asian Monetary Union

Ivo Maes () and Ilaria Pasotti ()
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Ivo Maes: Robert Triffin Chair, University of Louvain and Ichec Brussels Management School
Ilaria Pasotti: Consultant at the Intesa Sanpaolo Group Historical Archives

No 405, Working Paper Research from National Bank of Belgium

Abstract: Especially with the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998, Asian countries have advocated a profound reform of the international financial architecture. Their proposals focused on two main axes: a reform of the global financial system and stronger regional monetary integration in Asia. There are here significant parallels with the ideas of Robert Triffin (1911-1993). Triffin became famous with trenchant analyses of the vulnerabilities of the international monetary system, especially his book Gold and the Dollar Crisis. Triffin put forward several proposals for reforming the global monetary system, but he also developed proposals for regional monetary integration. These were very much based on his experience with the European Payments Union, and focused on the creation of a (European) Reserve Fund and a (European) currency unit. In this paper we focus on Triffin’s proposals for an Asian payments union in the late 1960s, giving special attention to Japan (in Triffin’s time the biggest Asian economy).

Keywords: Triffin; Bretton Woods; international liquidity; regional monetary integration; Asian Payments Union; Japan (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A11 B22 B31 E30 E50 F02 F32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2022-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ban, nep-his, nep-hpe, nep-mac, nep-mon, nep-pay and nep-sea
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