DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENTS IN INTERNATIONAL MONEY: THE QUESTION OF CURRENCY INTERNATIONALIZATION FROM BRETTON WOODS TO THE 1970S

Anthony M. Endres

Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2017, vol. 39, issue 4, 429-451

Abstract: In the Bretton Woods era the controversy over cross-border use of national monies turned on how to create ‘symmetries’ and avoid significant ‘asymmetries’ in the way national currencies shared specific international currency functions. We examine the twentieth-century work of prominent economists on the nature, choice, and functions of international currencies. Prescriptive approaches to international currency formation are considered, beginning with the discussion of the Bretton Woods plans, followed by doctrinal developments stimulated by the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. Why are those developments instructive, given recent revisitation of the currency internationalization question in modern international monetary thought and policy? The modern revival of this question resembles a rehabilitation and restatement of earlier controversies, though it underestimates the gradual encroachment of the idea of international currency competition. This idea came to dominate other doctrines from the 1970s; it accommodates the ongoing adaptation of national currencies to the full range of international currency functions.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

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:cup:jhisec:v:39:y:2017:i:04:p:429-451_00

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of the History of Economic Thought from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().