A gestação dos elementos do ‘padrão ouro-câmbio’ antes de I Guerra Mundial e sua institucionalização no pós-guerra

This paper examines the development of the international monetary system, conceptualized as a succession of forms based on increasingly complex forms of the international credit system. It starts with a critic of the current concepts about the subject, based as they are on the quantity theory of money. The hypothesis is made that the international monetary system follows the general lines of evolution of the national credit systems in the advanced countries. The first stage along that evolution was the set up of national credit systems, based on integrated banking systems and the central bank as a regulatory agency. A credit system at the international level was then built on that basis, the ‘gold exchange standard’ being its first actual form, starting with experimental forms and taking a developed form in the ‘gold dollar standard’, which was instituted at Bretton Woods, in 1944.