An Interpretation of the Collapsing Process of the Bretton Woods System

This paper attempts to determine the environments that market confidence might play a significant role in the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. We build a game-theoretic model of currency crises where a continuum of small speculators can decide their market confidence and trading positions. In the model, the convertibility of dollar is assumed to exhibit a long-term downtrend due to Triffin’s dilemma. The problem is analyzed on the grounds of both certainty and uncertainty. In the certainty case, we find that if the convertibility of dollar is low enough, a dollar crisis is inevitable, but if the convertibility is in an intermediate range with multiple equilibria, the Bretton Woods system is vulnerable to self-fulfilling speculation. In the uncertainty case, the incidence of the confidence crises will disproportionately increase as the convertibility of dollar falls. Lastly, this paper shows that the Federal Reserve Bank’s secrecy may extend the maximum lifespan of the Bretton Woods system.     

Canada and the IMF: Trailblazer or Prodigal Son?

Canada played an important role in the establishment of the IMF, yet in 1950 it was also the first major member to abandon the Bretton Woods par-value system in favour of a flexible exchange rate. Canada’s trail-blazing experience demonstrated that a flexible exchange rate can operate in stable and effective manner under a high degree of capital mobility. Equally important, it showed that monetary policy needs to be conducted differently under a flexible exchange rate and capital mobility. In 1962, Canada returned to the Bretton Woods system as a “prodigal son”, after a period of controversial monetary policy. This paper critically analyzes the interaction between Canadian and IMF officials regarding Canada’s exchange rate policy in view of the economic circumstances and the prevailing wisdom at the time. It also examines the impact on IMF research and policy because the Canadian experience influenced the work of Robert Mundell and Marcus Fleming, resulting in the development of the Mundell-Fleming model. Thus, the Canadian floating rate experience not only had important implications for the IMF and the Bretton Woods system, but also for macroeconomic theory and policy in open economies.     

International Monetary Regimes and Incidence and Transmission of Macroeconomic Shocks: Evidence from the Bretton Woods and Modern Floating Periods

This paper investigates the relationship between international monetary regimes and incidence and transmission of macroeconomic shocks within the context of an open-economy macro model. Empirical results confirm monetary interdependence and lower incidence of monetary discretion under fixed exchange rates. The average magnitude and dispersion of supply shocks in Bretton Woods and the subsequent float is comparable; however, the average magnitude and dispersion of real demand shocks under Bretton Woods seems higher. Overall, the international monetary regime may pose important constraints to policymakers in open economies.     

Inflation under the Bretton Woods system: The spillover effects of U.S. expansionary policies

This paper examines the transmission effects of U.S. expansionary policies on inflation in the G7 countries under the latter years of the Bretton Woods system. Using quarterly data and structural vector autoregressions, this paper investigates the extent of inflation variability due to U.S. aggregate supply and aggregate demand impulses in major industrial countries. Empirical results show that a sizable proportion of inflation variability in these countries can be attributed to U.S. shocks. A brief discussion follows concerning the breakdown of Bretton Woods and implications for the design and functioning of international monetary arrangements.     

The Behavior of the Real Exchange Rate Under Fixed and Floating Exchange Rate Regimes

This article investigates the behavior of real exchange rates under fixed and flexible exchange rates. Using data from both the Bretton Woods and the modern floating periods, we decompose real exchange rate movements into components attributable to supply shocks, real demand shocks, monetary shocks, capital flows shocks, and real oil price shocks. Empirical results show that real demand shocks are an important source of real exchange rate movements under both fixed and flexible rates, while monetary shocks are negligible. Supply and oil price shocks seem to be more important under Bretton Woods, while capital flows shocks seem to explain a relatively higher proportion of real exchange rate movements under the modern floating period.     

The Imbalances of the Bretton Woods System 1965 to 1973: U.S. Inflation,the Elephant in the Room

Open Economies Review - This paper argues that the key deep underlying fundamental for the growing international imbalances leading to the collapse of the Bretton Woods system between 1971 and 1973...     

The BW 2 regime: an unstable disequilibrium bound to unravel

The paper presents a critical analysis of the Bretton Woods 2 (BW2) hypothesis. According to this view China, other Asian economies and other emerging market economies follow mercantilist policies of maintaining fixed pegs to the US dollar at undervalued levels as a way to pursue export-led growth. The view in the paper is that there is indeed a BW2 regime in some regions of the world. But it is argued that BW2 is different from the first Bretton Woods system: BW2 is structurally unstable and fragile and will unravel over the horizon of the next few years, not a decade or longer. This unraveling could lead to a sharp fall for the US dollar and the US bond market with high real collateral costs with a disorderly rebalancing of the global economy.     

复活的布雷顿森林体系:国际争论与现实冲击

Dooley等人用"复活的布雷顿森林体系"(BWⅡ)框架解释全球国际收支失衡并预测这种模式未来还将持续,该学说在国际经济学界引起广泛关注。在对相关理论争议进行梳理的基础上,本文着重考察了2005年以来国际经济金融领域的最新变化对BWⅡ稳定性的影响。分析表明,中国等新兴经济体的汇率体制变化、美元的持续贬值、2007年部分国家初现端倪的储备多元化趋势等增强了BWⅡ的不稳定性,单一货币主导的国际货币体系格局很难持续。     

When Do Target Zones Work? An Examination of Exchange Rate Targeting as a Device for Coordinating Economic Policies

Open Economies Review - With the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, the Louvre Accord and the Bretton Woods system, policy makers have tried to use exchange rate targeting as a means of improving...     

Testing the ‘Fear of Floating’ Hypothesis: A Statistical Analysis for Eight African Countries

Open Economies Review - This paper revisits the fear of floating hypotheses for eight African countries from the collapse of the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate system in the early 1970s up until...     

The Yen Exchange Rate and the Hollowing Out of the Japanese Industry

Open Economies Review - Since the demise of the Bretton Woods system, the yen has seen several episodes of strong appreciation, including in the late 1970s, after the 1985 Plaza Agreement, the...     

Tales from the Bretton Woods

An analogy has been made between the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971 and the recent Eurozone crisis. The build up of TARGET balances in the Eurosystem of Central Banks after 2007 with the GIPS (deficit countries having large liabilities) and Germany (a surplus country) with large claims is seen as similar to the rising and persistent balance of payments deficits and declining gold reserves by the United States as center country of the BWS gold dollar standard in the 1960s. This paper argues that a better Bretton Woods analogy is between the UK which ran persistent balance of payments deficits reflecting low productivity growth and overly expansionary financial policies (an analogy to the GIPS) countries with West Germany which ran persistent balance of payments surpluses reflecting high productivity and conservative financial policies (analogous to Germany today). However Bretton Woods is very different from the Eurozone in many dimensions. An even better analogy than BWS is a comparison of the clearing mechanism in the U.S..--The Gold Settlement account—with the Target payments mechanism for the Eurozone. In the early 1930s massive gold flows from the interior, hard hit by banking panics, to New York City were similar to the payments imbalances within the Eurozone in the recent crisis. The Federal Reserve did little to accommodate the demands for liquidity leading to a collapse of the payments system in March 1933. By contrast the build up of TARGET reflected full accommodation of the liquidity demands of the member states. TARGET represented an institutional innovation that prevented a repeat of the 1930s payments crisis.     

国际货币体系改革与人民币国际化

布雷顿森林制度的解体加剧了国际金融市场的动荡 ,亚洲金融危机的爆发和蔓延进一步暴露出现有国际货币体系的缺陷 ,欧元面世催生国际货币新体系。本文立足于国际货币三元化发展的趋势 ,分析了目前制约人民币国际化的基本因素 ,并提出推动人民币国际化的重点在于实现人民币区域     

国际银行业统一监管体系的发展与完善

布雷顿森林体系解体以来,银行业发展迅速,机构跨国化,业务多样化以及创新工具不断涌现,金融危机频发,急需一个有效的国际统一监管体系。巴塞尔委员会自1975年成立以来,对国际银行统一监管发挥了重要作用,文章就巴塞尔协议这35年以来的发展趋势进行了研究,并试图找出新协议的缺陷和仍需继续改进的地方,提出进一步完善的重点。     

Book Reviews

book reviewed in this article
BLACKHURST, R., MARIAN, N. and TUMLIR, J. Adjustment
SABOT, R. H. Economic Development and Urban Migration
THIRLWALL, A. P. (ed.) Keynes and Laissez-Faire.
VAN DORMAEL, A. Bretton Woods: Birth of a Monetary System.     

Exchange rate regimes and uncertainty

Conclusion This paper examines the change in exchange rate uncertainty between the Bretton Woods and floating exchange rate periods. We estimate both the unconditional variance and the conditional variance of the DM/dollar exchange rate under each exchange rate regime. The former is estimated on the basis of the coefficient of variation and the latter on the basis of a GARCH model. Our GARCH results show that the unconditional variance greatlyunderstates the change in exchange rate uncertainty that resulted from the switch to a flexible exchange rate regime.     

BASKET PEGS AND EXCHANGE RATE REGIME CHANGE: AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND IN THE MID‐SEVENTIES*

The adoption of a basket peg by China in July 2005 raised interest in this form of exchange rate regime. This paper explores the emergence of the basket peg in the early 1970s, using New Zealand and Australia as case studies to examine why it was adopted, how it operated, and their policy‐makers' use of it to influence various goals. We highlight the complexity of regime choice following the collapse of Bretton Woods. For Australia and New Zealand, the basket peg was a plausible (although interim) solution when they were reluctant either to peg to a single currency or float.     

Why clashes between internal and external stability goals end in currency crises, 1797–1994

We argue that recent currency crises reflect clashes between fundamentals and pegged exchange rates, just as did crises in the past. We reject the view that crises reflect self-fulfilling prophecies that are not closely related to measured fundamentals. Doubts about the timing of a market attack on a currency are less important than the fact that it is bound to happen if a government's policies are inconsistent with pegged exchange rates. We base these conclusions on a review of currency crises in the historical record under metallic monetary regimes and of crises post-World War II under Bretton Woods, and since, in European and Latin American pegged exchange rate regimes.     

惯性困局：固定汇率制度改革之难题

历史观察发现,尽管均衡汇率随着宏观经济变量不断变化,汇率制度的演变却是十分缓慢的。本文利用持续期模型研究布雷顿森林体系结束至2004年的跨国数据,发现固定汇率制度具有很强的惯性特征,一国退出固定汇率制度的概率随着时间的推移不断下降。进一步,这种效应对于发展中国家较之发达国家更强。因此,在经济转型过程中,即便灵活的浮动汇率制度具备更高的效率,长期存在的固定汇率安排也不会轻易被放弃。汇率制度改革同其他领域的制度改革一样,只是经济环境成熟还远远不够,更需要一些特别地契机。     

国际贸易中的外汇风险及其防范

二战后建立起来的以美元为本位的布雷顿森林体系的瓦解导致了浮动汇率制对固定汇率制的取代。汇率由市场供求关系决定,同时在社会政治、经济,甚至是自然环境等因素的影响下频繁且大幅度波动。汇率的不稳定给外贸企业带来了汇兑风险、经营风险等,所以外贸企业应相应地采取控制汇率风险的措施。