Lessons from the 1970s for international monetary reform

Abstract

The collapse of the Bretton Woods System in 1971–3 led to ambitious efforts to reform the international monetary system, mainly through the deliberations of the Committee of Twenty (C-20). Many of the issues considered by the C-20 will be familiar to aficionados of twenty-first century discussions of international monetary reform. Ultimately, attempts to reach a consensus in the C-20 were unsuccessful. This paper seeks to identify explanations for that failure in an effort to limit the likelihood that it will be repeated.