Keynes and the International Monetary System revisited (a contextual and conjectural essay)

This paper attempts to answer the question: How would Keynes have viewed and reacted to the principal contemporary international monetary issues, namely, the framework of management, liquidity, the exchange rate regime, the adjustment mechanism, and the problem of developing countries? Keynes would arguably have favored a variant of crawling pegs rather than free floats for exchange rates, and a symmetrical (compulsory) adjustment mechanism for surplus as well as debtor countries, but would have been averse to the SDR link while welcoming the flexibility of the International Monetary Fund in meeting the requirements of developing countries consistently with the uniform treatment of all members.