Building up a Multilateral Strategy for the United States: Alvin Hansen, Jacob Viner, and the Council on Foreign Relations (1939–45)

Abstract

Between 1943 and 1947 a new economic order was founded, which aimed at implementing multilateral trade, international monetary cooperation and economic stability supported by government intervention. This paper describes the contribution provided to this process by a group of American economists working under the auspices of the Council on Foreign Relations and in close connection with the State Department. Since 1939 the Economic and Financial Group led by Jacob Viner and Alvin H. Hansen played an important role in designing strategic choices which concerned American economic interests in the postwar world and in preparing the ground for the establishment of such multilateral agencies as the IMF, the IBRD and the ITO-GATT system. In assessing Viner's and Hansen's views and proposals, this paper shows how different and competing approaches to economic theory and policy compromised and converged in supporting this outcome.

Harvard Meets the Crisis: The Monetary Theory and Policy of Lauchlin B. Currie, Jacob Viner, John H. Williams, and Harry D. White

“…While Viner took some part in the refinement of the White Plan and publicly supported it, Williams proposed a different approach, known as the Key-Currency plan, based on the stabilization between the British pound and the dollar, which would help other countries peg more gradually than under White’s plan. Williams’s proposal was also supported by Currie (Nerozzi 2009b); it aroused a lively debate and was later acknowledged by Robert Mundell as a source of inspiration for his theory of Optimal Currency Areas (Asso and Fiorito 2009).…”

Jacob Viner’s reminiscences from the new deal (February 11, 1953)

“…From 1939 on Viner also served as adviser to the State Department. This cooperation, which was mainly concerned with the plans for a new international economic order after the war, began informally: Viner was involved in the War and Peace Study Group Project, set up by the Council on Foreign Relations in close connection with the State Department (Nerozzi 2007b).…”

“…Yet, even though he did not take any part in the preparation of the White's Plan nor exerted any positive influence on it, Viner was certainly well acquainted with it at a very early stage of its conception and could probably profit of these insights in order to write two influential articles related to the post-war monetary order (Viner 1942, Viner 1943. His deep knowledge of Treasury's Plan and objectives, allowed him, in the Summer of 1943, to play a role in convincing Keynes to put aside his "Clearing Union Plan" and accept the American one as a more realistic basis for Anglo-American negotiations (see Nerozzi 2007b).…”

One Hundred Years of Exchange Rate Economics at the University of Chicago: 1892-1992

“…The term "Ricardo-Viner specific factors model" was coined bySamuelson (1971). SeeManeschi (1992),Viner (1991), andNerozzi (2007).…”