The Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung reviewed The Bretton Woods Transcripts earlier this week. The FAZ, as it is nicknamed, is one of Germany’s leading newspapers, widely regarded as having the best coverage of economics and business.
The review, behind a pay wall, is titled “Geburt des Dollar-Privilegs,” or “Birth of the Dollar’s Privilege.” The title is refers to the special role of the U.S. dollar in the Bretton Woods system of pegged exchange rates. The system began in 1946, largely broke down in 1971, and definitively ended in 1973. It was in practice based on the U.S. dollar, rather than being based on gold like the international monetary system before World War II and especially before World War I. In the 1960s, France’s finance minister termed the dollar’s special role an “exorbitant privilege.” A similar criticism was current in Germany, whose officials correctly perceived that the Bretton Woods exchange rate system gave the United States latitude in the short term for loose monetary policy that would result in higher inflation throughout the system than Germans wanted. (Germany did not participate in the Bretton Woods conference. It joined the IMF and World Bank in 1952, after being defeated in World War II and experiencing a period of occupation and rehabilitation.) The review stresses that the roots of the special role the dollar would have were already visible at the Bretton Woods conference.
The review also mentions the strategies of the Soviet Union at the conference, the role of John Maynard Keynes, and the availability of supplementary documents on the CFS Web site.
A Washington correspondent of the FAZ, Patrick Welter, wrote the review.