Gold, Dollar, International Trade and Monetary Integration in Us Foreign Policy: from the Interwar Years Through the Height of Bretton Woods
Abstract
This contribution aims at charting the topicality of gold in the shaping of US foreign financial and commercial relations from the Great Slump (Great Depression 1929-1939) through to the US balance of payments in the second half of the 1950s up to the eve of the international gold crisis of 1968. Through an analysis of the US foreign economic policy, the paper dissects this interrelation between US foreign trade and gold policy. Unlike the interwar years, the post-war decades from the 1950s to the 1960s were marked by a negative correlation between transnational gold movements, the US balance of payments deficit, the teetering of the US currency in international exchange markets, and international trade and monetary integration.
References
1. Bird, G. (2003), The IMF and the Future. Issues and Options facing the Fund, London-New York: Routledge.
2. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (1976), Banking and Monetary Statistics 1941-1970, Washington DC: GPO.
3. Bordo, M., Humpage, O.F., and Schwartz, A. (2015), Strained Relations. US Foreign-Exchange Operations and Monetary Policy in the Twentieth Century. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
4. Bordo M., and Humpage, O. F. (2016), «Federal Reserve Policy and Bretton Woods», in Bordo, M., and Wynne, M.A. (eds), The Federal Reserve’s Role in the Global Economy. A Historical Perspective, New York: Cambridge University Press.
5. Calomiris, C. W, and Wheelock, David W. (1998), «Was the Great Depression a Watershed for American Monetary Policy?», in Bordo, M., Goldin, C., and White, E. (eds), The Defining Moment. The Great Depression and the American Century in the Twentieth Century, Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
6. Chase Manhattan Corporation (1968), Euro-dollar Financing. A Guide for Multinational Companies. New York: Chase Manhattan Corporation.
7. D’Arista, J. (2013), «State of the Art. The US Central Bank at 100», International Journal of Political Economy 42 (3), 5-23.
8. Department of Commerce, Office of Business Economics. 1958. US Income and Output. A Supplement to the Survey of Current Business, Statistical Section. Tables, VI. Income and Employment by Industry. Washington DC: US Department of Commerce
9. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. 1975. Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, Part 2, Bicentennial Edition. Washington DC: GPO.
10. Department of Commerce. 1963. Survey of Current Business 43 (1).
11. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. 1966. Long-Term Economic Growth 1860-1965. A Statistical Compendium. Washington DC: GPO.
12. Department of the Treasury (1960), Annual Report of the Secretary of the Treasury on the State of Finances for the Fiscal Year ended June 30, 1959, Washington DC: GPO.
13. Department of the Treasury (1963), Annual Report of the Secretary of the Treasury on the States of the Finances for the Fiscal Year ended June 30, 1962, Washington DC: GPO.
14. Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), FOMC Meeting Minutes, August 21, 1962, in FOMC, https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/677
15. Gibson, W.E. (1971), «Eurodollars and US Monetary Policy», Journal of Money, Credit and Banking 3 (3), 651-652.
16. NBER, seasonally adjusted US Index of Production Worker Man hour in Manufacturing 01/1932-10/1962, in NBER MACROHISTORY: VIII. Income and Employment. Available at http://www.nber.org/databases/macrohistory/contents/chapter08.html.
17. James, H. (1996), International Monetary Cooperation since Bretton Woods, New York-Washington Dc: Oxford University Press-IMF.
18. «Introducing the Exchange Stabilization Fund 1934-1961» (2015), in Bordo, M., Humpage, O.F, and Schwartz, A (eds.), Strained Relations. US Foreign Exchange Operations and Monetary Policy in the Twentieth Century, Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
19. OECD (1993), International Direct Investment Statistics Yearbook, Paris: OECD.
20. Teitelbaum, R. and Moshe Sanbar, M. (2001), Holocaust Gold. From the Victims to Switzerland, Moreshet.
21. United Nations. (1998), Transnational Corporations in World Development: Trends and Prospects. New York: United Nations.
22. United Nations. (various years). Yearbook of International Trade Statistics, New York: United Nations.
23. UNCTAD. (various years), Handbook of International Trade and Development Statistics, New York: UNCTAD.
24. US and Allied Efforts to Recover and Restore Gold and Other Assets Stolen or Hidden by Germany During World War II. Preliminary Study, Coordinated by Stuart E. Eizenstat (Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade, Special Envoy of the Department of State on Property Restitution in Central and Eastern Europe), May 1997.
25. US Department of the Treasury (1946), Annual Report of the Secretary of the Treasury on the State of the Finances for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1945, Washington Dc: GPO.
26. US government (1962), Economic Report of the President transmitted to the Congress January 1962 together with the Annual Report of the Council of Economic Advisers, Washington DC: GPO.
27. Wachtel, H. M. (1990), The Money Mandarins. The Making of a Supranational Economic Order, London: Pluto Press.
28. Walter, A. (1993), World Power and World Money. The Role of Hegemony and International Monetary Order, Hempstead and New York: St. Martin’s Press.
29. Wilkie, C. (2012), Special Drawing Rights (SDRs). The First International Money, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Review
For citations:
Selva S. Gold, Dollar, International Trade and Monetary Integration in Us Foreign Policy: from the Interwar Years Through the Height of Bretton Woods. Review of Business and Economics Studies. 2017;5(2):23-35. (In Russ.)
Email this article 