IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/4642.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

France and the Bretton Woods International Monetary System: 1960-1968

Author

Listed:
  • Michael D. Bordo
  • Dominique Simard
  • Eugene White

Abstract

We reinterpret the commonly held view in the U.S. that France, by following a policy from 1965 to 1968 of deliberately converting their dollar holdings into gold helped perpetuate the collapse of the Bretton Woods International Monetary System. We argue that French international monetary policy under Charles de Gaulle was consistent with strategies developed in the interwar period and the French Plan of 1943. France used proposals to return to an orthodox gold standard as well as conversions of its dollar reserves into gold as tactical threats to induce the United States to initiate the reform of the international monetary system towards a more symmetrical and cooperative gold-exchange standard regime.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael D. Bordo & Dominique Simard & Eugene White, 1994. "France and the Bretton Woods International Monetary System: 1960-1968," NBER Working Papers 4642, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:4642
    Note: DAE IFM ME
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w4642.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eichengreen, Barry, 1996. "Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression, 1919-1939," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195101133.
    2. Robert Triffin, 1965. "Sterling, The Dollar, De Gaulle and Gold," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(4), pages 19-23, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Eugene N. White & Filippo Occhino & Kim Oosterlinck, 2007. "How Occupied France Financed Its Own Exploitation in World War II," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(2), pages 295-299, May.
    2. Eichengreen, Barry, 1993. "The Endogeneity of Exchange Rate Regimes," CEPR Discussion Papers 812, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Michael D. Bordo & Owen F. Humpage & Anna J. Schwartz, 2015. "US Intervention during the Bretton Woods Era, 1962–1973," NBER Chapters, in: Strained Relations: US Foreign-Exchange Operations and Monetary Policy in the Twentieth Century, pages 120-209, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Michael D. Bordo & Barry Eichengreen, 1998. "Implications of the Great Depression for the Development of the International Monetary System," NBER Chapters, in: The Defining Moment: The Great Depression and the American Economy in the Twentieth Century, pages 403-454, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Sergey Narkevich & Pavel Trunin, 2012. "Reserve Currencies: Factors of Evolution and their Role in the World Economy," Research Paper Series, Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy, issue 162P.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Barbara McKiernan, 1998. "Monetary disturbance or financial market collapse: tests of two theories of the Great Depression," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(2), pages 133-144.
    2. Ben S. Bernanke & Vincent R. Reinhart & Brian P. Sack, 2004. "Monetary Policy Alternatives at the Zero Bound: An Empirical Assessment," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 35(2), pages 1-100.
    3. Marianna Astore & Michele Fratianni, 2016. ""We can't pay": How Italy cancelled war debts after Lausanne," Mo.Fi.R. Working Papers 129, Money and Finance Research group (Mo.Fi.R.) - Univ. Politecnica Marche - Dept. Economic and Social Sciences.
    4. Edwards, Sebastian, 2020. "Change of monetary regime, contracts, and prices: Lessons from the great depression, 1932–1935," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    5. Juan Herreño & Matias Morales & Mathieu Pedemonte, 2023. "The Effect of Local Economic Shocks on Local and National Elections," Working Papers 23-08, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    6. Joachim Voth, 2013. "Tightening Tensions: Fiscal Policy and Civil Unrest in South America, 1937–95," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Luis Felipe Céspedes & Jordi Galí (ed.),Fiscal Policy and Macroeconomic Performance, edition 1, volume 17, chapter 3, pages 59-92, Central Bank of Chile.
    7. Charles I. Plosser & George P. Shultz & John C. Williams, 2016. "Panel on Independence, Accountability, and Transparency in Central Bank Governance," Book Chapters,in: John H. Cochrane & John B. Taylor (ed.), Central Bank Governance & Oversight Reforminancial Crisis, chapter 6 Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
    8. repec:ehl:wpaper:112428 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Ronny Mazzocchi & Roberto Tamborini, 2019. "Current Account Imbalances and the Euro Area: Alternative Views," EconPol Working Paper 27, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    10. Grant Fleming, 1997. "Keynes, purchasing power parity and exchange rate policy in New Zealand during the 1930s depression," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(1), pages 1-14.
    11. Christina D. Romer, 2014. "It Takes a Regime Shift: Recent Developments in Japanese Monetary Policy through the Lens of the Great Depression," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(1), pages 383-400.
    12. Peter Rosenkranz & Tobias Straumann & Ulrich Woitek, 2022. "The limits of internal devaluation: Switzerland during the great depression," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 158(1), pages 1-17, December.
    13. Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson, 2018. "Identification in Macroeconomics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 32(3), pages 59-86, Summer.
    14. Jason Lennard & Finn Meinecke & Solomos Solomou, 2023. "Measuring inflation expectations in interwar Britain," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 76(3), pages 844-870, August.
    15. Patrick K O'Brien & Nuno Palma, 2020. "Danger to the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street? The Bank Restriction Act and the regime shift to paper money, 1797–1821," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 24(2), pages 390-426.
    16. Richard S. Grossman & Christopher M. Meissner, 2010. "International aspects of the Great Depression and the crisis of 2007: similarities, differences, and lessons," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 26(3), pages 318-338, Autumn.
    17. Meissner, Christopher M., 2014. "Growth from Globalization? A View from the Very Long Run," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 8, pages 1033-1069, Elsevier.
    18. José De Gregorio, 2009. "La Macroeconomía, los Economistas y la Crisis," Latin American Journal of Economics-formerly Cuadernos de Economía, Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile., vol. 46(134), pages 149-159.
    19. Robert J. Shiller, 2017. "Narrative Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(4), pages 967-1004, April.
    20. Warren E. Weber, 2016. "A Bitcoin Standard: Lessons from the Gold Standard," Staff Working Papers 16-14, Bank of Canada.
    21. J. Peter Ferderer, 1994. "Credibility of the Interwar Gold Standard, Uncertainty, and the Great Depression," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_102, Levy Economics Institute.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F42 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - International Policy Coordination and Transmission
    • F33 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Monetary Arrangements and Institutions

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:4642. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.