International Financial History in the Twentieth Century: System and Anarchy (Publications of the German Historical Institute)

Cambridge University Press, 6/2/2003
EAN 9780521819954, ISBN10: 0521819954

Hardcover, 290 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English

The essays, written by leading experts, examine the history of the international financial system in terms of the debate about globalization and its limits. In the nineteenth century, international markets existed without international institutions. A response to the problems of capital flows came in the form of attempts to regulate national capital markets (for instance through the establishment of central banks). In the inter-war years, there were (largely unsuccessful) attempts at designing a genuine international trade and monetary system; and at the same time (coincidentally) the system collapsed. In the post-1945 era, the intended design effort was infinitely more successful. The development of large international capital markets since the 1960s, however, increasingly frustrated attempts at international control. The emphasis has shifted in consequence to debates about increasing the transparency and effectiveness of markets; but these are exactly the issues that already dominated the nineteenth-century discussions.

Contributors
Preface
Introduction Marc Flandreau and Harold James
1. Caveat Emptor
coping with sovereign risk under the international gold standard, 1871–1913 Marc Flandreau
2. Conduits for long-term foreign investment in the gold standard era Mira Wilkins
3. The gold-exchange standard
A reinterpretation Stephen A. Schuker
4. The bank of France and the gold standard, 1914–28 Kenneth Mouré
5. Keynes's road to Bretton Woods
an essay in interpretation Robert Skidelsky
6. Bretton Woods and the European neutrals, 1944–73 Jakob Tanner
7. The 1948 monetary reform in Western Germany Charles P. Kindleberger and F. Taylor Ostrander
8. The burden of power
military aspects of international financial relations during the long 1950s Werner Abelshauser
9. Denationalizing money? Economic liberalism and the 'national question' in currency affairs Eric Helleiner
10. International financial institutions and national economic governance
aspects of the new adjustment agenda in historical perspective Louis W. Pauly
Index.