Fifty years ago, the world changed. On August 15, 1971, US President Richard Nixon slammed shut the “gold window,” suspending dollar convertibility. Although it was not Nixon’s intention, this act effectively marked the end of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates. But, in truth, with the rise of private cross-border capital flows, a system […]
This weekend’s annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which brought together finance ministers and central bank governors from almost 200 countries, seem to have yielded no material changes in policy formulation at either the national or multilateral levels, and offered little to alter views on global economic prospects. Read Here – BloombergView
The extent of the shift becomes clearer when you look at the US-China equation. We are today dealing with a China whose accumulation of power is unprecedented in history, in both pace and extent. In 1990 the US economy was eight times the size of China’s. Today, in less than a quarter century, the two […]
China says that 30 countries have been approved as prospective founding members of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Read Here – Xinhua
In history, a hegemon is largely associated with the presence of international economic infrastructure. In the 19th century, the British hegemon underwrote the liberal international order in the form of free trade and gold standard. The liberal order was later re-established by the American hegemon, which has overseen the Bretton Woods system from 1945. By […]
U.S. Treasury official Harry Dexter White is best known as one of the leading architects of the Bretton Woods system that shaped the global economy after World War II. But he was also a spy for the Soviet Union, providing secret information and giving advice on economic issues. Why did he do it? Newly uncovered […]
looking beyond borders 