International Economic and Monetary Architecture at the Crossroads

Bretton Woods at 80
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-032-90202-9
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 280 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Reihe: Routledge Frontiers of Political Economy

The International Monetary Fund and World Bank were founded at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference on the premise that international cooperation and multilateralism would be to the benefit and enrichment of all. Yet, the establishment and evolution of the global financial architecture into its current form were not inevitable: this edited volume examines the “roads not taken” – critical junctures in the histories of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank – where the choices made, and the decisions taken, would have far-reaching consequences.

Geoeconomic fragmentation, nationalism, and extreme protectionism pose threats to the open trade and payments system and are jeopardizing the hard-won gains in global incomes and living standards driven by postwar trade and globalization. Against the urgent need to rekindle the Bretton Woods spirit of cooperation and multilateralism, while also reckoning with the shortcomings of the postwar international order as they were revealed over time, the authors of this volume turn to history for inspiration, lessons, and insights from both the roads taken and those left for another day. The book also demonstrates that future reform can be inspired by previous intellectual and theoretical efforts.

The book will be of great interest to readers interested in the past, present, and future of international monetary systems, economic governance, and international finance and banking more broadly.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ghosh, Atish

Masini, Fabio

Fachgebiete

• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Internationale Wirtschaft

Inhaltsverzeichnis

ntroduction - The Roads Not Taken

Atish Rex Ghosh and Fabio Masini

Resource-based International Currency: A History of a Failed

Consensual Idea

Nikolay Nenovsky

Champions of Free Trade: The Peruvian Proposal for a Conference on

Commercial Policy at Bretton Woods

César Castillo-García

Five Debates at the Creation of the International Monetary Fund

Atish Rex Ghosh

Four Roads not Taken at Bretton Woods: International Financial

Proposals Ahead of their Time

Eric Helleiner

Bretton Woods, and the problem of sovereign defaults during the

early phase

Juan Huitzilihuit Flores Zendejas

Paths not Taken with the American Payments Imbalance: Bureaucratic

Responses in the IMF, OECD, and BIS, 1960 to 1971

Kathryn Lavelle

SDRs and Development Finance: Uncovering the Early 1970s Debate

Albertina Nania

A Failed Attempt towards a Multilayered Safety Net: The Asian Monetary

Fund

Fabio Masini

Evolution of Gender and Anti-Discrimination Policies at the International

Monetary Fund: A Historical Analysis

Saliha Metinsoy

A Critical Road Not Taken? Assessing IMF Inclusive Growth and

Frameworks of Technocratic Progressive Taxation in the post-2008 Era

Mark Hibben

Luxembourg’s Role in Forging Post-war Financial Governance:

Knowledge, Leadership, Diplomacy

Elena Danescu

The Governance of the Bretton Woods Institutions: Ambitious but Failed

Goals?

Susanna Cafaro

Über Autor(innen)

Atish R. Ghosh is the Historian of the International Monetary Fund. His recent work has focused on issues related to the stability of the international monetary system. He has published numerous influential studies on international policy coordination and exchange rate regimes, including three books: Economic Cooperation in an Uncertain World (1994), Exchange Rate Regimes: Choices and Consequences (2003), and Currency Boards in Retrospect and Prospect (2008).

Fabio Masini is Professor of Theories and History of International Political Economy at Roma Tre University and Secretary General of Robert Triffin International. His main areas of research concern the history of economics of regional and global economic and monetary integration. His last book was on European Economic Governance: Theories, Historical Evolution, and Reform Proposals (2022) and he recently edited 80 Years after Bretton Woods. Relaunching Multilateralism through Regional Monetary Unions (2025).