A West European Perspective On Bretton Woods

Andrea Boltho

Chapter 6 in The UN and the Bretton Woods Institutions, 1995, pp 83-92 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract For most Western European observers, Bretton Woods is synonymous with the fixed exchange rate regime of the 1950s and 1960s. Little consideration has been given, outside Britain, to the negotiations of 1943–44, which were largely seen as an Anglo-American dispute that was bound to be won by the United States. And relatively little appears to have come for Europe from the institutions that were created at Bretton Woods. The World Bank, even if founded with European reconstruction in mind, was quickly marginalised by the Marshall Aid programme and by the activities of the OEEC. A similar fate befell GATT, whose efforts at trade liberalisation, however welcome, were, in the European context, overshadowed by those of the EEC and EFTA. Even the IMF, though clearly much more central to European preoccupations with the world monetary system, was usually seen as a relatively passive organisation, holding only limited funds and incapable of bold moves.

Keywords: Exchange Rate; Monetary Policy; European Monetary Union; European Monetary System; Optimum Currency Area (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1995
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-349-23958-0_7

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DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-23958-0_7

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