TY  - JOUR
AU  - Bordo,Michael D.
AU  - Simard,Dominique
AU  - White,Eugene
TI  - France and the Bretton Woods International Monetary System: 1960-1968
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 4642
PY  - 1996
Y2  - May 1996
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w4642
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w4642.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Michael D. Bordo
Department of Economics
Rutgers University
New Jersey Hall
75 Hamilton Street
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
Tel: 732/822-7152
Fax: 732/932-7416
E-Mail: bordo@econ.rutgers.edu

Eugene N. White
Department of Economics
Rutgers University
75 Hamilton Street
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1248
Tel: 732-932-7363
Fax: 732/932-7416
E-Mail: white@economics.rutgers.edu
AB  - We reinterpret the commonly held view in the U.S. that France, by following a policy from 1965 to 1968 of deliberately converting their dollar holdings into gold helped perpetuate the collapse of the Bretton Woods International Monetary System.  We argue that French international monetary policy under Charles de Gaulle was consistent with strategies developed in the interwar period and the French Plan of 1943.  France used proposals to return to an orthodox gold standard as well as conversions of its dollar reserves into gold as tactical threats to induce the United States to initiate the reform of the international monetary system towards a more symmetrical and cooperative gold-exchange standard regime.
ER  -