Will the US Dollar Remain the Single Global Currency?

Abstract

Despite the US Dollar (USD) providing the basis for the Bretton Woods system of pegged exchange rates, it has remained the world’s reserve currency. However, the supremacy of the USD as an international reserve currency has been questioned and challenged following the global financial crisis of 2008–09, just as it had been on three other notable occasions in the past: during the 1960s when gold reserves were running short, in the 1980s when Japan was a rising star and in the late 1990s when the Euro came into existence. Each time, though, the “USD standard” has proved to be very resilient.