The European Payments Union and the Origins of Triffin’s Regional Approach toward International Monetary Integration

Ivo Maes and Ilaria Pasotti

History of Political Economy, 2018, vol. 50, issue 1, 155-190

Abstract: Robert Triffin (1911–1993) played an important role in the international monetary debates in the postwar period. He was known as one of the main advocates of a multipolar international monetary system. In this paper we analyze the origins of Triffin’s “regional†approach toward international monetary integration. We argue that Triffin’s experience with the European Payments Union (EPU) played hereby a crucial role. Triffin was not only an “architect†of the EPU, but the EPU also led to an important shift in Triffin’s view of the geography of the international monetary system. Before his work on the EPU, Triffin conceived of the international economy as composed of two geographical entities: national economies and the world economy. With his work on the EPU he introduced a third geographical entity: the region.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1215/00182702-4335045 link to full text (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:hop:hopeec:v:50:y:2018:i:1:p:155-190

Access Statistics for this article

History of Political Economy is currently edited by Kevin D. Hoover

More articles in History of Political Economy from Duke University Press Duke University Press 905 W. Main Street, Suite 18B Durham, NC 27701.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Center for the History of Political Economy Webmaster ().