bretton woods
Recently Published Documents

The monetary system implemented at Bretton Woods in 1944 made the US dollar the centre of the world economic system, with 43 other countries' currencies linked to it via fixed exchange rates. However, once the US government broke its promise to redeem dollars in gold at $35 per ounce on August 15, 1971, expansion of the supply of dollars was no longer constrained, and like many currencies before it, the lack of monetary discipline led to inflation through which the value of the dollar has fallen by about 98%. The “oil shock” of the 1970s led to the introduction of the “petro-dollar” system whereby Saudi Arabia, then the largest oil producer, agreed to accept only US dollars in payment for its oil in exchange for the US government's pledge to defend it. This shored up demand for the fiat US dollar, enabling it to survive until its now approaching endgame.

The practice of neo-colonialism was initially introduced by the United States through the establishment of institutions like the Bretton Woods Institutions (IMF and World Bank) and continuing the legacy, China soon took over and had been using FDI to further its neo-colonial agenda in various parts of the world, including Pakistan. This research explores the history of colonization in the Sub-Continent and traces the origins of neo-colonization with a focus of the United States as a pioneer of the practice and China as the contemporary neo-colonizer. The research traces the transition from colonialism to neo-colonialism and examines the case of Pakistan as a victim of neo-colonialism, presenting the case based on evidence. The paper concludes that neo-colonialism is indeed colonialism with a changed outlook and proposes certain recommendations for Pakistan to minimize the impact of Chinese colonialism.

Abstract Why has gold persisted as a significant reserve asset despite momentous changes in international monetary relations since the collapse of the classical gold standard? IPE theories have little to say about this question. Conventional accounts of international monetary relations depict a succession of discrete monetary regimes characterized by specific power structures or dominant ideas. To explain the continuous importance of gold, we draw on insights from social psychology and new materialist theories. We argue that international monetary relations should be understood as a complex assemblage of material artifacts, institutions, ideas, and practices. For much of its history, this assemblage revolved around the pivotal practice of referencing money to gold. The centrality of gold as experienced by policymakers had important effects. Using archival and other evidence, we document these effects from the 1944 Bretton Woods conference through the transition to floating exchange rates in the mid-1970s; most IPE scholars underestimate the role of gold during this period. Power relations and economic ideas were obviously important, but they contributed little to a fundamental development: the long process of reluctantly coming to terms with the limitations of specie-backed currency, and the progressive and still ongoing decentering of gold in international monetary relations.

Forgive me writing to you after an interval of what I think must be forty-five years. Let me explain why I am writing. In the process of tidying up my room in the Marshall library, I found a diary of the Bretton Woods Conference. It was a typescript copy on foolscap paper. It was fascinating. It was obviously written by someone very much more alive and intelligent than the ordinary Treasury civil servant. By a process of elimination, I arrived at you as the almost certain author. I sent it to Donald Moggridge, who has edited the Bretton Woods volume in our Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes. He confirmed that it was not among the Keynes papers in the King's College archive.