01798nam a22001937a 4500003000800000005001700008007000300025008004100028020001800069020001900087040001800106041000900124050001500133100005200148245007700200260003900277300004300316520124500359BJBSDDR20260203101402.0ta260203s2010       ||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d  a9780262514149  a9780262050845,  bspa cBJBSDDR  aeng   bEI34  20101 aEichengreen, Barry J.,q(Barry Julian), d1952-10aGlobal imbalances and the lessons of Bretton Woods / cBarry Eichengreen  aMassachusetts : bMIT Press,c2010  a187 pages : billustrations ;  c20 cm  aWhy the current Bretton Woods-like international financial system, featuring large current account deficits in the center country, the United States, and massive reserve accumulation by the periphery, is not sustainable.
In Global Imbalances and the Lessons of Bretton Woods, Barry Eichengreen takes issue with the argument that today's international financial system is largely analogous to the Bretton Woods System of the period 1958 to 1973. Then, as now, it has been argued, the United States ran balance of payment deficits, provided international reserves to other countries, and acted as export market of last resort for the rest of the world. Then, as now, the story continues, other countries were reluctant to revalue their currencies for fear of seeing their export-led growth slow and suffering capital losses on their foreign reserves. Eichengreen argues in response that the power of historical analogy lies not just in finding parallels but in highlighting differences, and he finds important differences in the structure of the world economy today. Such differences, he concludes, mean that the current constellation of exchange rates and payments imbalances is unlikely to last as long as the original Bretton Woods System.