The Unending Search for a New Global Monetary and Financial Architecture

Abstract

After the 2007–2009 economic deluge, the policy and theoretical case for a New Global Monetary and Financial Architecture gained momentum. This article analyzes some key features of the global crisis that severely limited the range of action of modern central banking. Earlier episodes of concerted institutional or implicit collective efforts to “anchor” a global system and the search for a stable international key currency in a cooperative atmosphere have, in general, failed. The incentives to reinvent a new Gold Standard or Bretton Woods are always inversely related to the international business cycle. Questions regarding the heterodox political open economy stance of the new emerging economies during the contemporaneous crisis are also discussed.

Keywords:

• Global architecture
• central banks
• international currencies
• Bretton Woods
• emerging countries