International Finance And Globalisation ( Mn7574 )

1. On January 4, 1999, eleven member states of the European Union initiated the European Monetary Union (EMU) and established a single currency, the euro, which replaced

* The first post-war period (1945-1975) witnessed strong economic growth and gradual increase in globalization under the Bretton Woods institutions. What do we mean by “the Bretton Woods institutions” (Background Brief: Bretton Woods Institutions)? What role did the US play in setting up these institutions and what were its motives?

After World War II, the Western economic powers implemented the Bretton Woods System, an attempt to concurrently return to, build upon, and strengthen the pre-World War I economic system. The stringency of the Gold Standard was replaced by an economic system in which currencies were tied together by the more flexible US dollar, which was itself backed by gold. Free trade was reimplemented by GATT, which would later become the WTO. Under the Bretton Woods System, the world saw an incredible amount of post-war economic growth. Jeffry Frieden points out that in the postwar period, advanced capitalist nations “grew three times as fast as in the interwar years and twice as fast as before World War I”. The Bretton Woods System allowed for

In 1944, 730 delegates from all 44 allied nations met in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire; in what would be later known as the Bretton woods conference. The purpose of this meeting was to discuss methods to regulate the international monetary and financial order after the conclusion of world war ii. A system of exchange rates agreed upon between the world 's major industrial nations , it tied the value of the U.S. Dollar to gold and the value of other currencies to the U.S. Dollar. Under the Bretton woods system, the external values of foreign

In Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, representatives from the Allied nations met to change that. The agreement they struck, known as the Bretton Woods system, provided what they believed to be the necessary infrastructure to facilitate this increasingly global economy. All currencies would have a set exchange rate, in gold-backed dollar terms. This would, in theory, make global transactions involving different currencies simple and easy to regulate. The International Monetary Fund was established to make sure that these exchanges ran smoothly and that countries could meet their obligations.

July 1 to 22, 1944 in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, the Bretton Woods Conference took place to agree on new rules for the post-WWII international monetary system. Ensuring a foreign exchange rate system, promoting economic growth, and preventing competitive devaluations was the main goal. The International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development were major

The Bretton Woods system was created in July 1944 by the United States and its allies in order to formulate a plan for European recovery and create a new postwar international monetary and financial system that was supposed to encourage grow and development (Balaam, Dillam 2011). The Bretton Woods financial and monetary structure was supposed to ensure exchange rate stability and encourage its member countries to eliminated exchange rate restrictions that hinder trade. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank were conceived by the Bretton Woods system (International Monetary Fund). The countries that joined the IMF adopted an alternated version of the former gold standard’s

participants in this conference created three organizations to help regulate the international economy. The first is the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which was established with the idea of regulating monetary policy. One of the benchmarks of the IMF is the stabilization of exchange rates and the loaning of money to help stabilize countries with balance of payments deficits. The second organization established was the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) whose main focus was on a liberal trading order.

The end of the World War II marked the beginning of a new era for the world economy. The Bretton Woods System refers to an agreement made at an international conference between 44 nations in 1944 at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States of America (hereby U.S.) on the 22nd of July 1944. It was aimed at maintaining stability in the monetary system in the post World War II period. “In an effort to free international trade and fund postwar reconstruction the member states agreed to fix their exchange rates by tying their currencies to the U.S. dollar.” The fundamental of this system was liberalizing trade policy and promoting free trade. The U.S. dollar was linked to gold as a show of its

The Bretton Woods System was formed as a result of the collapse of the Golden Standard and The Great Depression. These closely related events prompted the need to establish an international monetary system, whose main aim was to revive the economies of the Post World War as well as fostering international economic relations that would end inter-war conflicts.

“The United States of Europe” was the first of many attempts at a stable economic system before the creation of The European Community.1 The next experimental economic system was a Council of Europe. Ten delegates, representing the ten countries in Europe, met in Strasbourg France in 1949 with the confidence that it would become a dominant

Since then, the IMF’s power and influence as an organisation increased even more after the collapsed of the global monetary rules it was assigned to oversee (Bretton Woods System). In February 1973, when the United States and the world abandoned the short-lived Smithsonian agreement, the entire attempt made to maintain the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate system collapsed. The world returned to market-determined free exchange rates, the very system the IMF was established to

Here the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, later divided into the World Bank and Bank for International Settlement, were established. To regulate the international policy economy these institutions become known as the Bretton Woods institutions and became operational in 1946. The IMF, founded to stabilize countries' currencies in relation to each other, holds money in trust, which member countries can borrow according to terms set by the institution. The World Bank instead gives more long-term loans and sells bonds to corporations and governments, which bind the issuer to pay the bondholder the amount of the loan plus interest. However, the countries taking advantage of the opportunity to borrow money to improve their affected economy are obliged to launch a set of policies, known as the Washington Consensus, which was first presented in 1989. The reforms introduced by the Institute for International Economics include "deregulation, privatization, currency devaluation, social spending cuts, lower corporate taxes, export driven strategies, and removal of foreign investment restrictions" . More, "these loans are only granted when the countries agree to the adoption to a comprehensive programme of macro-economic stabilization and structural economic reform."

The Bretton Woods Conference in New Hampshire in 1944 was a unique event in which representatives of two nations influenced the planning of the world monetary system (Scammell, 1982). The Article of Agreement was a negotiation between Britain and The United States, which was accepted and signed by 44 other nations (Ikenberry, 1933). The conference saw the establishment of the two most significant financial institutions, The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development [World Bank]

This gave birth to the Bretton Woods conference which sought to weld a new international monetary order under the joint initiative of England and USA.