Talk

The Rise and Fall of Bretton Woods: How Was Multilateralism Created, and Can It Survive?

Speaker: Prof Martin DAUNTON
2019.5.9

Speaker: Martin Daunton was Astor Professor of British History at University College London until he moved to the University of Cambridge in 1997 as Professor of Economic History, a post from which he retired in 2015. His research interests in British history focused on the place of Britain in the world economy, and he is now completing a book on the economic governance of the world since 1933 to be published by Allen Lane Penguin.

In 1933, in the aftermath of the Great Depression, the nations of the world assembled in London for the World Monetary and Economic Conference which soon ended in disarray. In 2009, the G20 countries met in London in the aftermath of the great financial crisis, and vowed not to repeat the mistakes of 1933. The lecture considers the creation of the Bretton Woods regime of multilateral institutions in response to the failures of the 1930s, and shows how they balanced the needs of domestic welfare and the international economy. This compromise was lost in the hyper globalisation of the later twentieth century. Can that balance between domestic welfare and internationalism now be restored?