Author: Mikhail V. Mikheev

Abstract:

The article contains comparative analysis of monetary reforms in several countries of Europe and Asia after World War II. Scientific novelty of the paper lies in the characteristic, along with the economic component, of social and political consequences of monetary measures implemented by governments in a number of states during the second half of the 1940s. Particular attention is paid to the dependence of monetary reforms’ configuration upon causal influence of various factors. The article shows the relationship between financial and economic policies of Western Europe and their political self-determination in the situation of the Cold War. The paper deals with the specifics of monetary policy in Germany in conditions of its division into sectors, the use of the monetary reform as a means of raising funds to restore war-shattered economy and strengthen its influence in the countries of Eastern Europe by the Soviet Union. As for Asia, the reforms are considered to be one of the factors in the civil war in China and as one of the prerequisites for the emergence of the Japanese “economic miracle”. Extra attention is given to the IMF and the IBRD’s participation in the reforms.

Keywords: Bretton Woods; International Bank of Reconstruction and Development; International Monetary Fund; economy; monetary reforms; inflation; crisis; Europe; Asia; the USSR.