The pre WWI financial order: 1870–1914
lackultrasThe gold standard widely adopted in this era rested on the conversion of paper notes into pre-t quantities of gold.
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From the 1870s to the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the world benefited from a well integrated financial order, sometimes known as the First age of Globalisation.[4] [5] Money unions were operating which effectively allowed members to accept each other's currency as legal tender including the Latin Monetary Union (Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, France) and Scandinavian monetary union (Denmark, Norway and Sweden). In the abnce of shared membership of a union, transactions were facilitated by widespread participation in the gold standard, by both independent nations and their colonies. Great Britain was at the time the world's pre-eminent financial, imperial, and industrial power, ruling more of the world and exporting more capital as a percentage of her national income than any other creditor nation has since.[6]
修汽车Between the World Wars: 1919–1939
ie是什么意思The years between the world wars have been described as a period of de-globalisation, as both international trade and capital flows shrank compared to the period before World War I.
During World War I countries had abandoned the gold standard and, except for the United States, returned to it only briefly. By the early 30's the prevailing order was esntially a fragmented system of floating exchange rates .[8] In this era, the experience of Great Britain and others was that the gold standard ran counter to the need to retain domestic policy autonomy. To protect their rerves of gold countries would sometimes need to rai interest rates and generally follow a deflationary policy. The greatest need for this could ari in a downturn, just when leaders would have preferred to lower rates to encourage growth. Economist Nicholas Davenport [9]沪江日语 had even argued that the wish to return Britain to the gold standard, "sprang from a sadistic desire by the Bankers to inflict pain on the British working class."
By the end of World War I, Great Britain was heavily indebted to the United States, allowi
ng the USA to largely displace her as the worlds number one financial power. The United States however was reluctant to assume Great Britain's leadership role, partly due to isolationist influences and a focus on domestic concerns. In contrast to Great Britain in the previous era, capital exports from the US were not counter cyclical. They expanded rapidly with the United States's economic growth in the twenties up to 1928, but then almost completely halted as the US economy began slowing in that year.
As the Great Depression intensified in 1930, financial institutions were hit hard along with trade; in 1930 alone 1345 US banks collapd. [10] During the 1930s the United States raid trade barriers, refud to act as an international lender of last resort, and refud calls to cancel war debts, all of which further aggravated economic hardship for other countries. According to economist John Maynard Keynes another factor contributing to the turbulent economic performance of this era was the insistence of French premier Clemenceau父亲节英文 that Germany pay war reparations at too high a level, which Keynes described in his book The Economic Conquences of the Peace.
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The Bretton Woods Era: 1945–1971
British and American policy makers began to plan the post war international monetary system in the early 1940s. The objective was to create an order that combined the benefits of an integrated and relatively liberal international system with the freedom for governments to pursue domestic policies aimed at promoting full employment and social wellbeing.[11]
underThe principal architects of the new system, John Maynard Keynes and Harry Dexter White, created a plan which was endord by the 42 countries attending the 1944 Bretton Woods conference, formally known as the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference. The plan involved nations agreeing to a system of fixed but adjustable exchange rates where the currencies were pegged against the dollar, with the dollar itlf convertible into gold. So in effect this was a gold – dollar exchange standard.
There were a number of improvements on the old gold standard. Two international institutions, the endomondoInternational Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank were created; A key part of their function was to replace private finance as more reliable source of lending
for investment projects in developing states. The new exchange rate system allowed countries facing economic hardship to devalue their currencies by up to 10% against the dollar (more if approved by the IMF) – thus they would not be forced to undergo deflation to stay in the gold standard. A system of capital controls was introduced to protect countries from the damaging effects of capital flight and to allow countries to pursue independent macro economic policies [12] while still welcoming flows intended for productive investment.
Towards the end of the Bretton Woods era, the central role of the dollar became a problem as international demand eventually forced the US to run a persistent trade deficit, which undermined confidence in the dollar. This, together with the emergence of a parallel market for gold where the price soared above the official US mandated price, led to speculators running down the US gold rerves. Even when convertibility was restricted to nations only, some, notably France,[13] continued building up hoards of gold at the expen of the US.
