Dollar’s triumph in Bretton Woods: how was it done?

Abstract

The increased economic power of the United States and their enormous golden reserves are the main reasons used by economists to explain why the Bretton Woods conference of 1944 put the dollar in the centre of a new international financial system. However, it is not clear if these conditions were sufficient for the introduction of a gold (de facto dollar) standard and excluded any other type of international financial order. The study of historical data reveals an effective diplomatic maneuver conducted by the U.S. administration with an aim to prevent a global transit to fiat money, to keep the importance of gold and to build a strictly hierarchical international financial system.