Introducing the book -- What is a balance of payments? -- How a balance of payments statement is organized -- What a balance of payments does and does not show -- Trade and capital items in the U. S. balance of payments -- Financing, defining, and interpreting the U. S. balance of payments -- Reinterpreting the rules of the game -- Exchange rates: ordinary market prices or symbols of international prestige? -- Considering international liquidity -- The many faces of the gold standard -- The International Monetary Fund -- The U. S. balance of payments - a second look -- Comparing public and private sectors in the U. S. balance of payments -- The public sector in the U. S. balance of payments -- Problems of the Bretton Woods monetary system -- International monetary reform in the 1960s -- The choices made in the 1960s -- SDRs, Eurodollars, two gold prices, and the dollar standard -- Solving the exchange rate problem -- The U. S. dollar in a new world -- Appendix A: The U. S. balance of payments: a restructuring -- Appendix B: The U. S. balance of payments: a chronology.