Rise and demise of Bretton Woods system - Michael Bordo

Um resumo de um paper importante, de um dos maiores especialistas no sistema de Bretton Woods.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

The Operation and Demise of the Bretton Woods System; 1958 to 1971 
For your information, especially if you want to understand some important historical issues related to our international monetary system, here is a good paper by Michael Bordo (NBER Working Paper No. 23189), The Operation and Demise of the Bretton Woods System; 1958 to 1971.
National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w23189?utm_campaign=ntw&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ntw
 
This chapter revisits the history of the origins, operation and demise of the Bretton Woods International Monetary System. The Bretton Woods system was created by the !944 Articles of Agreement to design a new international monetary order for the post war at a global conference organized by the US Treasury at the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods ,New Hampshire at the height of World War II. The Articles represented a compromise between the American plan of Harry Dexter White and the British plan of John Maynard Keynes. The compromise created an adjustable peg system based on the US dollar convertible into gold at $35 per ounce along with capital controls. It was designed to combine the advantages of fixed exchange rates of the pre World War I gold standard with some flexibility to handle large real shocks. The compromise gave members both exchange rate stability and the independence for their monetary authorities to maintain full employment.
It took over a decade for the fully current account convertible system to get started. The system only lasted for 12 years from 1959 to 1971 but it did deliver remarkable economic performance. The BWS evolved into a gold dollar standard which depended on the US monetary authorities following sound low inflation policies. As the System evolved it faced the same severe fundamental problems as in the interwar gold exchange standard of: adjustment, confidence and liquidity. The adjustment problem meant that member countries with balance of payments deficits, in the face of nominal rigidities, ran the gauntlet between currency crises and recessions. Surplus countries had to sterilize dollar inflows to prevent inflation.
The U.S. as center country faced the Triffin dilemma. With the growth of trade and income member countries held more and more dollars instead of scarce gold as reserves generated by a growing US balance of payments deficit. As outstanding dollar liabilities grew relative to the US monetary gold stock confidence in the dollar would wane raising the likelihood of a run on Fort Knox.This led to the possibility that the US would follow tight financial policies to reduce the deficit thereby starving the rest of the world of needed liquidity leading to global deflation and depression as occurred in the 1930s. Enormous efforts by the US, the G10 and international institutions were devoted to solving this problem.
As it turned out, after 1965 the key problem facing the global economy was inflation, not deflation, reflecting expansionary Federal Reserve policies to finance the Vietnam war and the Great Inflation. US inflation was exported through the balance of payments to the surplus countries of Europe and Japan leading them in 1971 to begin converting their outstanding dollar holdings into gold. In reaction President Richard Nixon closed the US gold window ending the BWS.

Globalizacao: atualmente e cem anos atras - M. Bordo, B. Eichengreen, D. Irwin (NBER, 1999)

Um paper de 1999, mas ainda muito interessante, para demonstrar que existem coisas novas e boas, mas, como se diz, as boas não são novas, e as novas podem não ser boas...
Vale ler...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Is Globalization Today Really Different than Globalization a Hunderd Years Ago?

Michael D. Bordo, Barry Eichengreen, Douglas A. Irwin

NBER Working Paper No. 7195
Issued in June 1999
NBER Program(s):   DAE   IFM   ITI 

This paper pursues the comparison of economic integration today and pre 1914 for trade as well as finance, primarily for the United States but also with reference to the wider world. We establish the outlines of international integration a century ago and analyze the institutional and informational impediments that prevented the late nineteenth century world from achieving the same degree of integration as today. We conclude that the world today is different: commercial and financial integration before World War I was more limited. Given that integration today is even more pervasive than a hundred years ago, it is surprising that trade tensions and financial instability have not been worse in recent years. In the conclusion we point to the institutional innovations that have taken place in the past century as an explanation. This in turn suggests the way forward for national governments and multilaterals.

Neste link: http://www.nber.org/papers/w7195