History 1807 Lecture Notes - Lecture 27: International Monetary Fund, United States Dollar, Reserve Currency
21 Apr 2016
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Document Summary
Geopolitical, cultural and military context for understanding why post-war economic system was shaped. End of wwwii sense of instability b/c of cold war. Period that was very aware of instability that preceded war (great depression) Postwar years took shape due to anxiety, dread and paranoia. General agreement on tariffs and trade (gatt), 1947. Stopped trade and brought commercial system to halt. Countries manipulated values of their currency that disrupted trade inflation, interest rates, printing $ to deal with internal problems. Wanted to create new system at bretton woods. Countries that sign on would set currencies to a certain rate and tie that value to. American dollar not on gold standard anymore. American dollar would become reserve/establishment currency that would be fixed to gold. Remove ability of individual countries to control the value of their currencies. Technically, world remains on gold standard through american dollar but not directly .
