Webinar: The Fate of the Dollar, 50 Years after Nixon Let It Float
Thursday, Jul 22 2021 at 12:00 - 1:00 pm EDT
Please join a discussion with Yale SOM Dean Emeritus Jeffrey Garten on his new book, Three Days at Camp David: How a Secret Meeting in 1971 Transformed the Global Economy. The book tells the story of how President Nixon and his team cloistered themselves over the weekend of August 13-5, 1971—50 years ago this August—and made the decision to sever the connection between the dollar and gold, and to announce it with no prior warning to a stunned world that Sunday night. This act became one of the most consequential economic decisions in the post-World War II era, leading to the end of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates, to fluctuating currencies backed only by government promises, to more financial instability, to more intense globalization, to a new kind of relationship between the U.S. and its allies—and even to a world that will be characterized by digital currencies. Garten will discuss some of the eerie parallels between the Camp David meeting and today, and he will look into the future of the dollar in a rapidly changing global economy.