Search Results
Journal Article
50 years after Bretton Woods: what is the future for the international monetary system?
On March 18, 1994, the Eastern Economic Association sponsored a roundtable discussion at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, to examine the future of the international monetary system in light of the aims of the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944. The title of the roundtable captured the central concern of each speaker: to what extent can the ideals of the founders of the Bretton Woods system be implemented today? ; It was agreed that a return to a fixed-rate system, as envisioned by the founders of the Bretton Woods system, is not possible today given the changes in underlying economic ...
Journal Article
Perspective on Bretton Woods
Working Paper
Bretton Woods and the U.S. decision to intervene in the foreign-exchange market, 1957-1962
The deterioration in the U.S. balance of payments after 1957 and an accelerating loss of gold reserves prompted U.S. monetary authorities to undertake foreign-exchange-market interventions beginning in 1961. We discuss the events leading up to these interventions, the institutional arrangements developed for that purpose, and the controversies that ensued. Although these interventions forestalled a loss of U.S. gold reserves, in the end, they only delayed more fundamental adjustments and, in that respect, were a failure.
Working Paper
Bretton Woods, swap lines, and the Federal Reserve’s return to intervention
This paper describes the United States? first line of defense against shortcomings in the Bretton Woods system, which threatened the system?s continuation as early as 1960. The exposition describes the Federal Reserve?s use of swap lines both to provide cover for central banks? unwanted dollar exposures, thereby forestalling claims on the U.S. gold stock, and to supply dollar liquidity to countries facing temporary balance-of-payments deficits, thereby bolstering confidence in their parities. As suggested by the expansion and growing use of the swap lines, the operations failed to distinguish ...
Working Paper
U.S. intervention during the Bretton Wood Era:1962-1973
By the early 1960s, outstanding U.S. dollar liabilities began to exceed the U.S. gold stock, suggesting that the United States could not completely maintain its pledge to convert dollars into gold at the official price. This raised uncertainty about the Bretton Woods parity grid, and speculation seemed to grow. In response, the Federal Reserve instituted a series of swap lines to provide central banks with cover for unwanted, but temporary accumulations of dollars and to provide foreign central banks with dollar funds to finance their own interventions. The Treasury also began intervening in ...
Journal Article
Understanding trends in foreign exchange rates
Conference Paper
Global imbalances and the lessons of Bretton Woods
Conference Paper
The revived Bretton Woods system: alive and well
Conference Paper
Dollars and deficits: where do we go from here?
Conference Paper
An essay on the revived Bretton Woods system