Monetary Theory and Bretton Woods: The Construction Of An International Monetary Order (Historical Perspectives on Modern Economics)
Cambridge University Press, 1/22/2009
EAN 9780521739092, ISBN10: 0521739098
Paperback, 264 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm
Language: English
Over the twentieth century monetary theory played a crucial role in the evolution of the international monetary system. The severe shocks and monetary gyrations of the interwar years interacted with theoretical developments that superseded the rigid rules of commodity standards and led to the full-fledged conception of monetary policy. The definitive demise of the gold standard then paved the way for monetary reconstruction. Monetary theory was a decisive factor in the design of the reform proposals, in the Bretton Woods negotiations, and in forging the new monetary order. The Bretton Woods system - successful but nevertheless short-lived - suffered from latent inconsistencies, both analytical and institutional, which fatally undermined the foundations of the postwar monetary architecture and brought about the epochal transition from commodity money to fiat money.
1. Introduction
2. International monetary equilibrium and the properties of the gold standard
3. The international monetary system between the world wars
4. The monetary system in economic analysis
the critique of the gold standard
5. The Great Depression
overturning the state of the art
6. Providing for a new monetary order
7. The Bretton Woods Agreements
8. Bretton Woods and after.
'Filippo Cesarano has written a masterful survey of the literature on the evolution of the global regime from the classical gold standard to the present era of fiat money. The book is a must-read for any serious scholar of the international monetary system. His careful interweave of economic history, the history of economic doctrine, and modern monetary theory reveals the importance of the principles of monetary theory for the successes and failures of the sequence of monetary regimes from the pre-1914 gold standard, to the gold exchange standard, to Bretton Woods, and to the present penchant for monetary unions.' Michael Bordo, Rutgers University