The multiple contexts of Bretton Woods

Abstract

This paper examines why so much debate about the structure of the international economy revolves around a conference held at Bretton Woods in July 1944 which was not immediately conspicuously successful. There was a unique confluence of contemporary contexts-in terms of trade policy, stabilization policy, and policies with regard to capital movements-that meant that prevailing ideas (especially the ideas of John Maynard Keynes) and the interests of the United States coincided. It was fundamentally a victory of…