The IMF and SDRs Under Bretton-Woods

Professor Perry Mehrling discussing how international payments work with the IMF (and specifically how they worked before 1971 under the Bretton-Woods system) using SDRs. The Bretton-Woods system used an approximately fixed quantity of reserves of gold and SDRs (Special Drawing Rights), in contrast to John Maynard Keynes's proposed Bancor Plan, which would have created an elastic system of international reserves. (See more on the Bancor plan here:    • The Keynes Bancor Plan  ) Rather than having an elastic system which expands with the need for payment balances, the IMF system imposed quite a lot of discipline on member countries, and particularly on the trade deficit countries, who would be running out of gold and foreign reserves. Watch the whole lecture here: https://www.coursera.org/learn/money-... Take the whole course here: https://www.coursera.org/learn/money-... Follow Deficit Owls on Facebook and Twitter:   / deficitowls     / deficitowls