The International Monetary System: The Next Stage

Abstract

In August 1971 the Bretton Woods system of international monetary relations ended, ‘not with a bang but a whimper’. The so-called Nixon measures signalled a change of arrangements and attitudes which put the world on notice that the United States was no longer prepared to fill the key role in that system. From that moment forward, makeshift arrangements have provided an uneasy interregnum, while the Committee of Twenty distil from the experience of the past and the wisdom of the present the essence of a new system.

‘Que diable allons-nous faire dans cette galère’

With apologies to Molière.

This chapter appeared in the Journal of Economic Studies (May 1974) pp. 30–44, and is reprinted here by kind permission of the editor.