How Bretton-Woods Fell Apart

Professor Perry Mehrling discussing the structure and fall of the Bretton-Woods international monetary system. In this system, the dollar was pegged to gold at $35 per ounce, then all other national currencies were pegged to the dollar at fixed exchanges rates. Then SDRs (Special Drawing Rights) could also be used to settle international payments. This system was put into place in 1946 until it fell apart in 1971. The reason it fell apart was because the supply of international dollars was growing faster than the supply of gold. This happened because of US trade deficits, but also because they lent dollars into existence to foreign nations to finance development. But as the supply of dollars started to get much larger than the stock of gold that the US held, it started to put pressure on the dollar exchange rate with gold. We could have revalued gold, but we didn’t until it was too late. When countries started demanding payments in gold instead of dollars, Nixon chose to end convertibility into gold. This ended the Bretton-Woods system, and began the era of floating exchange rates, which we still are in today. This was a monumental moment for the world, because on a floating exchange rate, a government is capable of pursuing full employment through a Job Guarantee policy (more on that here: Watch the whole lecture here: Take the whole course here: Follow Deficit Owls on Facebook and Twitter: