Vernieuwing van het internationale geldstelsel: Achtergrond, probleem-stelling en overzicht van het debat

Abstract

This issue is completely devoted to the problem of International Monetary Reform. The present monetary system is a variant of the gold exchange standard; it may be called “a Gold Dollar Standard”, since there is a fixed price of each national currency in terms of dollars whereas gold, too, has a fixed price in terms of dollars. The United States has developed from a reserve country into “a banking country”. In the same way as a bank of issue puts paper money into a national economy's circulation, the U.S., by virtue of its balance-of-payments deficit, issues dollars which go into the world's circulation. The dollar and the pound act as key currencies. At the same time, however, the American stock of gold decreases. Hence, “the cash ratio” of the “banking country” decreases, and, as a result, confidence in the dollar is sapped. In order to maintain this confidence, it is necessary for the U.S. to restore its balance-of-payments equilibrium, but as a result the creation of international reserve media will peter out as far as dollars are concerned. This means that the world is faced with a true dilemma. In this issue the shortcomings of the present international monetary system are examined by Mr. T. de Vries. For some years already, an international debate on the methods of improving the monetary system is going on. This special issue of De Economist is devoted to a survey of the debate. Dr. W. F. Duisenberg expounds the contributions of the International Monetary Fund. Mr. H. de Haan deals with the Triffin Plan. Professor S. Posthuma summarizes his own proposal — multiple currency reserves —, and takes the opportunity to criticize the paper by E. Despres, Ch. P. Kindleberger and W. S. Salant in the London Economist of February 5, 1966. The proposal of re-introducing the traditional gold standard made by J. Rueff and M. A. Heilperin is not discussed in a separate paper: it is only mentioned briefly in Section 3.4 of this introductory article. Mr. C. A. Klaasse contributes a paper on the proposal of introducing flexible rates of exchange. Professor J. Goudriaan puts in another plea for introducing the gold-exchange-commodity standard, with an appendix (written in English, see pp. 814 ff.) on the calculation of the aggregate monetary reserves required by the members of the I.M.F. Professor C. D. Jongman discusses the three documents hitherto produced by the Group of Ten, and mentions also the Report by Working Party No. 3 of the Economic Policy Committee of the O.E.C.D. A brief consideration on the so-called Bellagio Report — International Monetary Arrangements: The Problem of Choice, Princeton, N.J., 1964 — is presented in Section 3.8 of this introductory article. Every paper is headed by a Summary in English.