A gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is based on a fixed quantity of gold. The gold standard was the basis for the international monetary system from the 1870s to the early 1920s, and from the late 1920s to 1932 as well as from 1944 until 1971 when the United States unilaterally terminated convertibility of the US dollar to gold, effectively ending the Bretton Woods system. Many states nonetheless hold substantial gold reserves.
In economics, inflation is a general increase of the prices of goods and services in an economy. This is usually measured using the consumer price index (CPI). When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation corresponds to a reduction in the purchasing power of money. The opposite of CPI inflation is deflation, a decrease in the general price level of goods and services. The common measure of inflation is the inflation rate, the annualized percentage change in a general price index. As prices faced by households do not all increase at the same rate, the consumer price index (CPI) is often used for this purpose.
A reserve currency is a foreign currency that is held in significant quantities by central banks or other monetary authorities as part of their foreign exchange reserves. The reserve currency can be used in international transactions, international investments and all aspects of the global economy. It is often considered a hard currency or safe-haven currency.
In finance, an exchange rate is the rate at which one currency will be exchanged for another currency. Currencies are most commonly national currencies, but may be sub-national as in the case of Hong Kong or supra-national as in the case of the euro.
The Bretton Woods system of monetary management established the rules for commercial relations among the United States, Canada, Western European countries, and Australia among 44 other countries after the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement. The Bretton Woods system was the first example of a fully negotiated monetary order intended to govern monetary relations among independent states. The Bretton Woods system required countries to guarantee convertibility of their currencies into U.S. dollars to within 1% of fixed parity rates, with the dollar convertible to gold bullion for foreign governments and central banks at US$35 per troy ounce of fine gold. It also envisioned greater cooperation among countries in order to prevent future competitive devaluations, and thus established the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to monitor exchange rates and lend reserve currencies to nations with balance of payments deficits.
International political economy (IPE) is the study of how politics shapes the global economy and how the global economy shapes politics. A key focus in IPE is on the distributive consequences of global economic exchange. It has been described as the study of "the political battle between the winners and losers of global economic exchange."
In economics, an optimum currency area (OCA) or optimal currency region (OCR) is a geographical region in which it would maximize economic efficiency to have the entire region share a single currency.
Barry Julian Eichengreen is an American economist and economic historian who holds the title of George C. Pardee and Helen N. Pardee Professor of Economics and Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 1987. Eichengreen currently serves as a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and as a Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research.
In international finance, a world currency, supranational currency, or global currency is a currency that would be transacted internationally, with no set borders.
Susan Strange was a British scholar who was "almost single-handedly responsible for creating international political economy." Notable publications include Sterling and British Policy (1971), Casino Capitalism (1986), States and Markets (1988), The Retreat of the State (1996), and Mad Money (1998).
Robert Gilpin was an American political scientist. He was Professor of Politics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University where he held the Eisenhower professorship.
There are two different types of world currency unit in use today that have different origins and usages.
The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States and several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introduced the U.S. dollar at par with the Spanish silver dollar, divided it into 100 cents, and authorized the minting of coins denominated in dollars and cents. U.S. banknotes are issued in the form of Federal Reserve Notes, popularly called greenbacks due to their predominantly green color.
Currency intervention, also known as foreign exchange market intervention or currency manipulation, is a monetary policy operation. It occurs when a government or central bank buys or sells foreign currency in exchange for its own domestic currency, generally with the intention of influencing the exchange rate and trade policy.
A fixed exchange rate, often called a pegged exchange rate, is a type of exchange rate regime in which a currency's value is fixed or pegged by a monetary authority against the value of another currency, a basket of other currencies, or another measure of value, such as gold.
New Political Economy (NPE) is a relatively recent sub-school within the field of political economy. NPE scholars treat economic ideologies as the relevant phenomena to be explained by political economy. Thus, Charles S. Maier suggests that a political economy approach: "interrogates economic doctrines to disclose their sociological and political premises [...] in sum, [it] regards economic ideas and behavior not as frameworks for analysis, but as beliefs and actions that must themselves be explained". This approach shapes Andrew Gamble's The Free Economy and the Strong State, and Colin Hay's The Political Economy of New Labour. It also guides much work published in New Political Economy, an international journal founded by Sheffield University scholars in 1996.
British International Political Economy is a label attached by some to a particular approach to international political economy (IPE), an approach which increases the breadth of choices about what IPE really involves. Ben Cohen's book International Political Economy: An Intellectual History describes the history of IPE as having led to two separate and incommensurate camps: 'American' IPE and 'British' IPE. Cohen's stated purpose was to create a dialogue between the camps with a view to bridging the intellectual divide. It has been argued that it is Cohen's characterization of the British IPE that has provoked the biggest criticisms.
The Denationalisation of Money is a 1976 book by Friedrich Hayek, in which the author advocated the establishment of competitively issued private moneys. In 1978 Hayek published a revised and enlarged edition entitled Denationalisation of Money: The Argument Refined, where he speculated that rather than entertaining an unmanageable number of currencies, markets would converge on one or only a limited number of monetary standards, on which institutions would base the issue of their notes.
Eric Helleiner is an author and professor of political science and the Faculty of Arts Chair in International Political Economy at the University of Waterloo, and a professor at the Balsillie School of International Affairs.
In 1945, China cofounded the International Monetary Fund (IMF) with 34 other nations. China was initially represented by the Republic of China. In April 1980, representation transferred to the People's Republic of China. The Chinese-IMF relationship mainly operates around affairs associated with IMF governance and the IMF Special Drawing Rights (SDR).
