Conclusion: Bretton Woods and British Decline

Abstract

By the end of the 1950s it seemed that many of the crises that had plagued the world economy since 1945 had finally been resolved. The dollar shortage was over, trade liberalization was proceeding apace, many Western European economies were booming and the future of global multilateral trade and payments looked secure. The return to non-resident convertibility and the rebirth of the Bretton Woods twins seemed to point to a future in which the ideals espoused at New Hampshire might finally be realized. But behind such predictions lay fears that new, and perhaps more fundamental, structural imbalances in the world economy were developing which would call for a radical overhaul of international economic relations.