(Routledge International Studies in Money and Banking)
Great Architects of International Finance - The Bretton Woods era
by Anthony M.Endres

Publisher:   Routledge
Number Of Pages:   272
Publication Date:   2005-04-19
ISBN-10 / ASIN:   0415324122

Contents
List of tables x
Preface xi
Abbreviations xiii
1 Essential elements of a doctrinal approach 1
The primacy of ideas 1
On the intellectual architecture of the international financial
order 3
Choice of great architects 5
Economic ideas and international financial policy:normative
issues 8
Main purposes of a doctrinal perspective 10
2 The Bretton Woods financial order–a distinctive economic
doctrine 14
Some intellectual background 14
Bretton Woods:first principles 18
Commentary 22
Policy assignment guidelines at Bretton Woods:a
reconstruction 28
Conclusion 31
3 Alvin Hansen’s Keynesian interpretation of Bretton Woods 35
An American Keynesian at Bretton Woods 35
Clarifying the BW exchange rate principle 38
Promoting international economic stability through monetary
and fiscal policies 44International action to combat secular stagnation and
underdevelopment 49
Conclusion 52
4 John Williams’s‘key currency’alternative for the
international financial order 56
International monetary problems in the interwar years:a view
from Harvard 56
Williams’s reaction to Bretton Woods and his alternative 62
Principal criticisms of the key currency architecture 68
Other policies essential to the key currency architecture 72
Summary and assessment 75
5 Frank Graham on international money and exchange rates 79
Graham’s critique of gold standards 79
Heretical pronouncements on BW principles 84
The commodity reserve standard proposal 89
A plan for full employment and price stability after BW 93
Conclusion 99
6 Robert Triffin’s supranational central bank:a plan to
stabilize liquidity 102
Intellectual background 102
Triffin’s revisionist views on the operation of the gold
standard 103
New‘canons’of international financial behaviour:qualified
support for BW 107
The key currency convertibility crisis 112
The supranational bank proposal and its limitations 116
Concluding reflections on Triffin’s policy assignment
guidelines 122
7 A Chicagoan international financial order 127
A Chicagoan tradition on international financial reform?127
Reactions to BW:Simons and Viner 128
Milton Friedman’s case for flexible exchange rates 135
Friedman’s monetary and fiscal framework for international
stability 140
viii ContentsHarry Johnson’s renewed case for flexible exchange rates 144
Policy assignment rules for a Chicagoan international financial
order 147
8 Reconstructing the international gold standard:European
perspectives 150
A genuine gold-based international financial order:the Mises
ideal 150
The bastardized interwar gold standard and an alternative to
BW 153
Mid-twentieth-century gold standard doctrine 158
Mid-twentieth-century gold standard doctrine:a synthesis?170
9 Salvaging the fixed exchange rate architecture:the ideas of
Roy Harrod and Robert Mundell 176
Roy Harrod’s advocacy of a rise in the price of gold 176
Harrod on IMF renovations:the case of SDRs 180
Harrod’s principles for domestic policy in a reformed BW
architecture 184
Robert Mundell on the failing BW order,circa 1965–71 188
The currency area option 195
Reforming the BW financial architecture?198
10 The plurality of international financial architectures in the
BW era 204
Implications arising from the architecture metaphor 204
Principal beliefs embodied in various architectures 208
A plurality of financial architectures:some lessons from our
survey 212
Notes 217
Bibliography 237
Index 254
Contents ix