Benn Steil on the Battle of Bretton Woods

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🗓️ 16 February 2015

⏱️ 65 minutes

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Summary

Benn Steil of the Council on Foreign Relations and author of The Battle of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the Making of a New World Order talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about Bretton Woods, the conference that resulted in the IMF, the World Bank, and the post-war international monetary system. Topics discussed include America and Britain's conflicting interests during and after World War II, the relative instability of the post-war system, and the personalities and egos of the individuals at Bretton Woods, including John Maynard Keynes and Harry Dexter White.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:06.4	I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
0:11.0	Our website is econtalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this podcast, and find links
0:16.2	and other information related to today's conversation.
0:19.0	You'll also find our archives where you can listen to every episode we've ever done going
0:23.2	back to 2006.
0:25.4	Our email address is mailadycontalk.org.
0:27.9	We'd love to hear from you.
0:32.0	Today's January 30th, 2015, and my guest is Ben Steele, Senior Fellow and Director of International
0:38.1	Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations.
0:41.2	His latest book is The Battle of Bretton Woods, John Minard Cain's Harry Dexter White, and
0:47.4	the Making of a New World Order.
0:49.7	That book is the topic of our conversation.
0:51.9	Ben, welcome to Econ Talk.
0:53.9	Thanks for having me, Russ.
0:55.5	Now Bretton Woods was a legendary international conference in 1944 toward the end of World
1:00.2	War II with the goal of creating an international monetary system to correct some of the perceived
1:05.2	problems in international trade and the health of the world's economies.
1:08.9	But to understand what happened there, we have to go back as you do in your book to
1:13.6	before World War II.
1:15.8	And what went wrong with monetary policy and trade in the 1930s?
1:21.6	If you want to understand what went wrong with monetary and trade policy in the 1930s,
	...

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