PSCI 4805 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: General Agreement On Tariffs And Trade, Global Financial System, International Trade

• School: Carleton University
• Department: Political Science
• Course: PSCI 4805
• Professor: Randall Germain

Document Summary

Notes on bretton woods and the gold standard: The money supply was gold plus sterling. Growth in the power of sterling was what allowed for growth of the international money supply. Creation of money was a private manner, governments were not really printing money, but banks were. The bank of england was essentially a private club. Example of what was basically a private international monetary system. Gold, as opposed to silver, is actually deflationary. Sterling was really what the system was based on, more so than gold. Institutes as the guardians of national currency: the us did not have a national bank until 1913, the federal reserve is very unique, nothing else like it. The adoption of the pre 1914 rates was unrealistic. Was overvalued for britain but undervalued for italy, france, and belgium. Growth of trade unions prevented governments to make domestic monetary adjustments that would hurt workers.