Capital Account, Foreign Trade and Development Assistance: US Foreign Economic Policy in the 1960s

Simone Selva
Additional contact information
Simone Selva: University of Naples – L’Orientale

Chapter 2 in Before the Neoliberal Turn, 2017, pp 19-89 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract This chapter pinpoints the US strategies to restore balance of payments equilibrium and the dollar’s strength in foreign exchange markets from the late 1950s through to the 1960s, and its linkage to the US gold policies. After a late 1950s unsuccessful attempt to restore international payments equilibrium focused on the capital account position that included high interest rates, credit restraint policies, and the squeezing of the money supply, the Kennedy administration turned its attention to the current account component. Against this backdrop the chapter pinpoints Washington’s commitment to reduce overseas US military expenditures and to increase foreign military sales, as well as pressures on capital-surplus European partners for early repayments of outstanding debts and to have them embark upon a string of trade liberalizations. All of these measures were aimed at reducing foreign holdings of dollars and convertible foreign currencies, and at averting the international run on US gold stocks and its harmful effects on the dollar’s convertibility into gold and its stability in foreign markets.

Keywords: Kennedy administration; Johnson administration; Transnational capital flows; US gold reserves; US balance of payments on current account; US foreign trade; US foreign military assistance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palscp:978-1-137-57443-5_2

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9781137574435

DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-57443-5_2

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Studies in Economic History from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().