A crisis manager for the international monetary and financial system? The rise and fall of the OECD working party 3, 1961-1980

Abstract

Throughout the postwar period, economic policy-makers, economic experts, and international officials were involved in bilateral and multilateral negotiations over the architecture, stability, and reform of the international monetary and financial system. The Working Party 3 (WP3) of the OECD’s Economic Policy Committee (EPC) was a key platform for such negotiations. Focusing on this influential but little understood body, this chapter analyzes how international experts within the WP3 dealt with the crises of the international monetary system in the decade before and after the 1971 collapse of the Bretton Woods monetary system. It appraises not only the rise of the WP3 as a “crisis manager” of the international monetary system, but also describes its demise during the 1970s to the early 1980s.