Читать книгу Financial Cold War. A View of Sino-US Relations from the Financial Markets онлайн

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Anxious to avoid a repeat of the policy mistakes of the 1920s and 1930s, his plan sought to replicate the stability of the gold standard within a more flexible framework. There were two key elements to his proposal.

First, there was to be a new global reserve currency created, which he called Bancor (French for ‘bank gold’). Bancor was to have a fixed exchange rate against all members’ currencies and gold, but it was provided that countries with persistent balance of payments deficits would be subject to automatic devaluations, while countries running persistent surpluses would be subject to upwards adjustments of their exchange rates. This created a ‘pegged but adjustable’ currency system that enabled changes in countries’ relative balance of payments to be reflected in their exchange rates over time.ssss1

Second, it involved setting up a new global central bank that he called the International Clearing Bank (ICB), which would take on the role of issuing Bancor. Central banks were to buy and sell their own currencies among themselves through a system of debits and credits in their ICB ‘clearing accounts’, with the ICB providing overdraft facilities to cover any temporary balance of payments shortfalls.ssss1 This would avoid the chronic shortage of gold reserves that wrought global financial instability in the interwar years. Although Keynes had accommodated gold within the system in recognition of its historic monetary role, it was provided that the ICB could issue new Bancors in exchange for gold, but that there would only be one-way convertibility, thereby gradually withdrawing gold from its monetary role over time.