국제통화협력과 국제통화제도의 안정성

International Monetary Cooperation and Stability of International Monetary System

The plaza Agreement of September 22, 1985 and the Louvre Accord of February 22, 1987 are analyzed to be examples of successful international monetary cooperation which are thought to be helpful to preserving the stability of international monetary system in the early 1980s with a tendency of potential international monetary crisis due to the misalignment of major exchange rates. The persistent overvaluation of US dollar against currencies of major industrial countries, which was result, mainly, of the benign neglect policy of the Reagan administration, threatened the stability of international monetary system. The weakness of the US trade balance aggravated by the overvaluation of dollar induced a fundamental change in the U. S. policy authority's attitude and the G-5 authorities could reach agreements to pursue cooperative efforts to lower dollar's exchange value and to coordinate macroeconomic policies. This led to the Plaza-Louvre Agreements for international monetary cooperation. Success in inducing the depreciation of dollar and accordingly preventing the realization of potential international monetary crisis is argued to be the most important contribution of the Plaza-Louvre Agreements to the preservation of international monetary stability. The Plaza-Louvre Agreements' success in maintaining the stability of international monetary system is contrasted with the failure of the Bretton Woods System to produce a successful monetary cooperation in the crisis situation in the early 1970s. The failure of the Bretton Woods and the success of Plaza-Louvre were mostly due to the fact that the latter had one more variable, namely. exchange rate, which could be the object of international coordination with enough flexibility, and which forced the key currency country to change its policy of benign neglect.