Gold Window Research Articles

Bretton Woods After 50

ABSTRACT This paper reviews the operation of the Bretton Woods international monetary system 50 years after the United States closed the Gold Window linking the dollar to gold in August 1971. It argues that Bretton Woods operated as successfully as it did owing to three special circumstances: low international capital mobility, tight financial regulation, and the dominant economic and financial position of the United States and the dollar. There can be no more straightforward an explanation for why nothing like Bretton Woods will be restored in the foreseeable future.

Closing the Gold Window: The End of Bretton Woods as a Contingency Plan

In August of 1971, President Nixon announced that the United States was “closing the gold window,” bringing an end to the postwar system of international exchange rate stability and precipitating a period of significant uncertainty and transformation in global institutions. Although this critical historical episode is important for an understanding of historical “neoliberalism” and institutional change, modern sociological perspectives have scarcely been applied to it. The present analysis uses archival data to show that closing the gold window was never the goal or preferred strategy of the Nixon administration, which had spent years preparing much more modest reforms. Nevertheless, US policymakers took this unilateral action as a contingency plan to achieve a short-term goal, knowing that it would dramatically change the functioning of the international economy. Surprisingly, the autonomous structure of the IMF did not channel US initiatives toward gradual evolution but rather helped determine a radical change in strategy.

Crisis as Opportunity: Nixon’s Announcement to Close the Gold Window

The authors reexamine the announcement of the August 1971 decision to suspend convertibility of U.S. dollars to gold, or closing of the gold window, which ended the Bretton Woods system and ushered in the neoliberal era. Existing accounts identify critical pressure on the U.S. gold supply after May 1971 international currency disruptions as a tipping point for this policy. In contrast, using new archival evidence, the authors reveal that Nixon strategically framed May 1971 events as an urgent economic “crisis,” deploying “crisis” as a justification for closing the gold window. Nixon seized crisis opportunism to announce a policy decided upon significantly before May 1971, to privilege U.S. interests in the international arena and to assuage his reelection concerns, before potential backlash by the International Monetary Fund members and the U.S. Congress. The authors draw lessons from this historical case for contemporary events and for examining economic crises as objects of inquiry in their own right.

Bretton Woods and the Financial Crisis of 1971 (a) and (B) (Abridged)

In August 1971, US President Richard Nixon must decide how to respond to a growing “run” on the US dollar. Declining confidence in the dollar has led some national trading partners to redeem dollars for gold at the US Treasury's gold window. Nixon has convened an urgent conference with his economic advisers at Camp David to consider a response. The two dominant policy alternatives are (a) gradual intervention proposed by central banker, Arthur Burns; and (b) “shock treatment” (devaluation of the dollar by abandoning the commitment under the Bretton Woods Agreement to convert dollars into gold at the rate of $35/ounce) proposed by Treasury Secretary John Connally. The task for the student is to assess the situation and recommend a course of action.The A case describes the Bretton Woods system, the run on the dollar, and Nixon's policy dilemma. The B case gives the text of Nixon's 1971 address outlining his New Economic Policy. This A and B abridged case, which has been taught successfully in Darden in-person and online classes, shortens the total presentation by eliminating some of the quoted material; the student task in this case is to analyze Nixon's decision and decide on next steps. The C case presents a brief epilogue. Excerpt UVA-F-1837 Rev. Jul. 21, 2020 Bretton Woods and the Financial Crisis of 1971 (A) and (B) (Abridged) This could be the most important weekend in the history of economics since March 4, 1933. —Herbert Stein, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, August 13, 1971 On August 15, 1971, President Richard Nixon addressed the nation to introduce a New Economic Policy that would dramatically change the stance of the United States in international monetary affairs. This policy—reached after a dramatic debate among advisers—would impose a special import tax surcharge and suspend the convertibility of dollars for gold. These actions would abandon the Bretton Woods agreement that had underpinned global finance since 1945. Before his speech, Nixon reflected upon why a new policy was necessary and what had changed in the world to warrant a new policy. How would US voters and foreign trading partners respond to this new policy? . . .

The End of the Bretton Woods International Monetary System

This paper examines two episodes of international economic policy coordination: the efforts to modify the Bretton Woods international monetary system in the 1960s and early 1970s and to reform the system after the closing of the US official gold window on August 15, 1971. The paper examines the diagnoses of the problem in each episode, the treatments applied, and the results in the short run and longer run. In the short run, both episodes were failures. The international monetary system that emerged in the mid-1970s, while less systemic than some would like, has nevertheless stood the test of time, although proposals for its reform continue to be discussed.

The political economy of wage and price controls: evidence from the Nixon tapes

In late July, 1971, Nixon reiterated his adamant opposition to wage and price controls calling them a scheme to socialize America. Yet, less than a month later, in a stunning reversal, he imposed the first and only peacetime wage and price controls in U.S. history. The Nixon tapes, personal tape recordings made during the presidency of Richard Nixon, provide a unique body of evidence to investigate the motivations for Nixon’s stunning reversal. We uncover and report in this paper evidence that Nixon manipulated his New Economic Policy to help secure his reelection victory in 1972. He became convinced that wage and price controls were necessary to grab the headlines away from the defeatist abandonment of the Bretton Woods Agreement and the closing of the U.S. gold window. Nixon understood the impact of his wage and price controls, but chose to trade off longer-term economic costs to the economy for his own short-term political gain.

The Closure of the ‘Gold Window’: From ‘Camera-Eye’ to ‘Brain-Screen’

This essay explores the correspondence between cinema and money through an investigation of what I call the 'financialization of the image.' Drawing from the tradition of psychoanalytic film criticism and the cinematic ontology of Gilles Deleuze, it argues that the 'camera-eye' and the 'brain-screen' are distinct modes of organizing cinematic perception in capital. Furthermore, it argues that Gilles Deleuze's understanding of the brain-screen is the most adequate mode of thinking of the organization of subjective vision within control societies and the financialization of life itself.

The Nixon shock after forty years: the import surcharge revisited

AbstractOn 15 August 1971, President Richard Nixon closed the gold window and imposed a 10% surcharge on all dutiable imports in an effort to force other countries to revalue their currencies against the dollar. The import surcharge was lifted four months later after the Smithsonian agreement led to new exchange rate parities. This paper examines the political, economic, and legal issues surrounding this use of trade sanctions to achieve exchange rate adjustments.

A Century of Inflation Forecasts

We investigate inflation predictability in the United States across the monetary regimes of the twentieth century. The forecasts based on money growth and output growth were significantly more accurate than the forecasts based on past inflation only during the regimes associated with neither a clear nominal anchor nor a credible commitment to fight inflation. These include the years from the outbreak of World War II in 1939 to the implementation of the Bretton Woods Agreements in 1951 and from Nixon's closure of the gold window in 1971 to the end of Volcker's disinflation in 1983.

Hybrid solar cells based on CuInS 2 and organic buffer–sensitizer layers

Hybrid solar cells on the basis of CuInS 2 (CIS) photoabsorber on Cu-tape (CISCuT) in combination with organic buffer layers of Zn-phthalocyanine (ZnPc), ZnPc:fullerene (ZnPc:C 60) composite and conductive polymer buffer layers of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) doped with polystyrenesulfonate (PSS) were prepared using vacuum evaporation and spin-casting techniques. To prepare solar cells with an active area of 2 cm 2, the appropriate deposition parameters and thickness of ZnPc, ZnPc:C 60 and PEDOT-PSS layers were selected experimentally. For preparation of semitransparent contact-window layers, chromium and gold were evaporated on the surface of ZnPc, ZnPc:C 60 and PEDOT-PSS films. It was found that an intermediate chromium layer improves PV properties of the structures with organic buffer layers. The photosensitivity at small illumination intensities of complete structures with ZnPc and ZnPc:C 60 layers increased more than one order of magnitude in comparison with the structures where the PEDOT-PSS buffer layer was deposited. The presence of C 60 in the composite-buffer layer results in increased photoconductivity. The best structure with composite ZnPc:C 60 buffer layer showed an open-circuit voltage of 560 mV, a short-circuit current density of around 10 mA/cm 2 and a photoconversion efficiency of around 3.3% under the light illumination with an intensity of 100 mW/cm 2 from a tungsten–halogen lamp. The low transmission of the semitransparent chromium–gold window layer is the reason for relatively low current density.

The Free Trade Area of the Americas: American-Domainated Trade, American-Dominated Finance?

Before being overtaken by events of 11 September 2001, the topic of the Free Trade Area of the Americas occupied much attention in the US and Canada. The subject was approached as primarily a trade barrier agenda. However we here argue that globalisation and open markets have also been facilitated by issues of currency exchange rates and the fight against inflation. This, in turn, forces considering of the enduring hegemonic status of the US dollar as world numeraire. Floating exchange rates arrived when, in 1971, US President Richard Nixon unilaterally closed the Gold window at the Fed. This effectively ended the postwar Bretton Woods system of the dollar–gold relationship. That action also gave rise to the raging inflation of the 1970s. As inflation has been a problem for economic alignment, we need to look closely at how matters financial – as well as those of trade – affect prospects for the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

Fabrication of Window Saddles for NIF Cryogenic Hohlraums

A planar diagnostic viewing port attached to the cylindrical wall of the NIF cryogenic hohlraum requires a saddle-like transition piece. While the basic design of this window saddle is straightforward, its fabrication is not, given the scale and precision of the component. We solved the problem through the use of a two segment copper mandrel to electroform the gold window saddle. The segments were micro-machined using a combination of single-point diamond turning and single point diamond milling. These processes as well as the electroplating conditions, final machining and mandrel removal are described in this paper.

Determining the energy response of a silicon surface-barrier detector to incident 3- to 25-keV electrons

An energy-sensitive silicon surface-barrier detector is employed to measure the number of secondary electrons emitted during a collision between an energetic macromolecular ion and a surface. Each extracted secondary electron impacts the detector with energy U, but due to backscattering and other effects, only energy ηU is deposited in the detector. The electron energy deposition function, η = η( U) ≤ 1, is not well known for the 3- to 25-keV energies employed in our setup. In this paper, η( U) is measured with a specially developed compact electron-pulse source placed at variable potential relative to the detector. For a particular detector, it was found that η(U) = k(1− 1.59 √U ) , where U is in units of keV. Although the proportionality constant k is not directly determined in this experiment, an estimate of k ≈ 1.35 was calculated by combining literature values of the electron transmission probability of the detector gold window and the electron backscattering coefficient for silicon for 20 keV electrons.

Book Review: Closing the Gold Window: Domestic Politics and the End of Bretton Woods

Book Review: Closing the Gold Window: Domestic Politics and the End of Bretton Woods

Closing the Gold Window: Domestic Politics and the End of Bretton Woods.Joanne Gowa

<i>Closing the Gold Window: Domestic Politics and the End of Bretton Woods.</i>Joanne Gowa

Closing the Gold Window: Domestic Politics and the End of Bretton Woods, by Joanne Gowa

Closing the Gold Window: Domestic Politics and the End of Bretton Woods, <i>by Joanne Gowa</i>

State Power, State Policy: Explaining the Decision to Close the Gold Window

State Power, State Policy: Explaining the Decision to Close the Gold Window

Closing the Gold Window: Domestic Politics and the End of Bretton Woods

Closing the Gold Window: Domestic Politics and the End of Bretton Woods

Closing the Gold Window: Domestic Politics and the End of Bretton Woods

Closing the Gold Window: Domestic Politics and the End of Bretton Woods

Tremors from the Nixon “Shokku”

Sunday, August 15, 1971. It is 8 o'clock in the evening, television prime time. Suddenly the president appears on the screen, tense and unsmiling as ever, and makes a three-point announcement: The gold window will be closed, a wage-and-price freeze will be imposed, and a blanket 10 per cent surcharge will be levied on imports — all to take effect immediately. The world is stunned. Almost instantly the shock waves cross the globe. A dazed fapan cries out against what it calls — in a memorable phrase — the “Nixon shokku.”History has few examples of such a blitz-like turnabout and of such blatant disregard of promises and commitments publicly made and of international obligations solemnly undertaken. The twenty-six-year-old Bretton Woods agreement was cast overboard without the least qualm; the dollar, which for all those years had enjoyed the privileges of the world's foremost reserve currency, was delinked unilaterally from gold and set afloat.