Paths to convertibility

Abstract

The postwar world economic order conceived during and right after World War II (Brabant 1991g, pp. 22–39) was to rest on multilateralism, nondiscrimination, reciprocity, currency convertibility, and free trade. The existence of MEs with largely privately owned firms as members of that global order was simply taken for granted. Among the initial key precepts was substantially, if not fully, liberalized markets for goods and services. Later on capital markets too were to be freed up, though perhaps not all the way. Many advocates of this arrangement held on to the notion that freedom to access each other’s markets with minimal state regulation and interference would be the nec plus ultra to attaining the other, more practical objectives.