Thirty years ago, then-U.S. Treasury Secretary James A. Baker, III, gathered fellow financial leaders of the world’s five largest economies at The Plaza Hotel in New York to agree to actively depreciate the dollar. The dollar’s significant decline made the Plaza Accord a uniquely successful example of currency policy coordination.
Is the Plaza Accord as significant as we think? Why has the Plaza coordination of 1985 never been successfully repeated? How do currency markets, major players and coordination possibilities work today? Is there an alternative to currency manipulation and currency wars?
On Oct. 1, Secretary Baker, other key players from the Plaza summit, and top international economists and financial market participants will connect the dots between currency policy then and now. This series of working papers will be presented during the conference:
“Before the Plaza: The Exchange Rate Stabilization Attempts of 1925, 1933, 1936, and 1971” by Barry Eichengreen, George C. Pardee and Helen N. Pardee Professor of Economics and Political Science, University of California, Berkeley
“The Plaza Accord, 30 Years Later” by Jeffrey Frankel, Harpel Professor of Capital Formation and Growth at the Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University
“The Plaza Agreement and Japan: Reflection on the 30th Year Anniversary” by Takatoshi Ito, professor of international and public affairs, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
“Why Was the Plaza Accord Unique?” by Russell A. Green, Will Clayton Fellow in International Economics, Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy; David H. Papell, Joel W. Sailors Endowed Professor, University of Houston; and Ruxandra Prodan, assistant professor of economics, University of Houston
“The Plaza Agreement: Exchange Rates and Policy Coordination” by Edwin M. Truman, nonresident senior fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics
“A Personal Account of the Plaza Accord of September 22, 1985” by David C. Mulford, vice chairman of International Credit Suisse
“The International Monetary System in Perpetual Search of Stability” by Agnès Bénassy-Quéré, professor, Paris School of Economics, University of Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne
“Foreign Exchange Interventions Since Plaza: The Need for Global Currency Rules” by Joe Gagnon, senior fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics
“Time for Plaza II?” by C. Fred Bergsten, senior fellow and director emeritus, Peterson Institute for International Economics
“A Rules-based Cooperatively-managed International Monetary System for the Future” by John B. Taylor, Mary and Robert Raymond Professor and the George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Economics, Stanford University
