Towards a Renewed Bretton Woods Agreement

Over seventy-five years ago, in the midst of World War II, delegates from 45 countries met in the U.S. state of New Hampshire to define a global monetary system for the postwar world. Those arrangements, forever associated with the New Hampshire town of Bretton Woods, have been challenged on many occasions, and yet their core premise--the U.S. dollar as the anchor currency for the world--remains very much alive today. In this volume, Giovanni Tria and Angelo Federico Arcelli trace the ups and downs of the Bretton Woods system and tell the story of its evolution from World War II to today. They explain the key mechanisms that drove the system until the United States stopped pegging the dollar to gold in 1971, and how that decision and other developments led to what they call "Bretton Woods II" arrangements. They make the case that the world we know today is so different than the ones that characterized either Bretton Wood I or Bretton Woods II that a new look is required. It may be time to consider a Bretton Woods III. In the spirit of prompting reflective thinking about the future of the transatlantic relationship within the global economic and monetary system, the Transatlantic Leadership Network is pleased to publish this volume by our two distinguished authors.