Table Of ContentEurope's post-war recovery
Western Europe's recovery from World War II was nothing short of
miraculous. From the chaos of the war and the crisis of 1947, Europe
moved to the most rapid quarter-century of economic growth in her
history. The contributors to this volume seek to identify the sources of this
singularly successful recovery. That all European countries shared in the
miracle suggests that its roots may lie at the international level. The
chapters therefore focus on the role played by international institutions -
the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the European Coal
and Steel Community, the European Payments Union, the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade - and weigh the relative importance of
domestic and international factors in Europe's post-war recovery.
This book will be of interest to students of modern European history
and to economists interested in economic growth, European economic
integration, and reform of the Bretton Woods institutions.
Studies in Monetary and Financial History
Editors: Michael Bordo and Forrest Capie
Michael Bordo and Forrest Capie, Monetary regimes in transision
S.N. Broadberry and N.F.R. Crafts, Britain in the international economy,
1870-1939
Trevor J.O. Dick and J.E. Floyd, Canada and the gold standard: Canada
1871-1913
Barry Eichengreen, Elusive stability: essays on the history of international
finance, 1919-1939
Kenneth Moure, Managing the franc Poincare, 1928-1936: economic
understanding and political constraint in French monetary policy
Larry Neal, The rise of financial capitalism: international capital markets in
the Age of Reason
Aurel Schubert, The credit-Anstalt crisis of 1931
David C. Wheelock, The strategy and consistency of federal reserve
monetary policy, 1924-1933
Europe's post-war
recovery
Edited by
BARRY EICHENGREEN
University of California at Berkeley
CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RP
40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA
10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia
© Cambridge University Press 1995
First published 1995
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress cataloguing in publication data
Europe's post-war recovery / edited by Barry Eichengreen.
p. cm. - (Studies in monetary and financial history)
ISBN 0 521 48279 8
1. Europe - Economic conditions - 1945- 2. International economic
relations. 3. Europe - Economic integration. I. Eichengreen, Barry J. II. Series.
HC240.E873 1995
330.94'055 - dc20 94-37937 CIP
ISBN 0 521 48279 8 hardback
Transferred to digital printing 2003
VN
Contents
List of contributors vii
Preface ix
Part I Introduction and survey
1 Mainsprings of economic recovery in
post-war Europe 3
Barry Eichengreen
Part II The Marshall Plan
2 The Marshall Plan reconsidered 39
Lucrezia Reichlin
3 Influencing aid recipients: Marshall Plan
lessons for contemporary aid donors 68
Chiarella Esposito
Part III Other international initiatives
4 The IMF and the creation of the Bretton
Woods System, 1944-58 93
Harold James
5 The GATT's contribution to economic
recovery in post-war Western Europe 127
Douglas A. Irwin
6 The European Coal and Steel Community:
an object lesson? 151
John Gillingham
vi Contents
1 The European Payments Union: an efficient
mechanism for rebuilding Europe's trade? 169
Barry Eichengreen
Part IV Country studies
8 Germany and the political economy of the
Marshall Plan, 1947-52: a re-revisionist view 199
Helge Berger and Albrecht Ritschl
9 "You've never had it so good?": British
economic policy and performance, 1945-60 246
N.F.R. Crafts
10 "Belgian miracle" to slow growth: the
impact of the Marshall Plan and the
European Payments Union 271
Isabelle Cassiers
11 France: real and monetary aspects of
French exchange rate policy under the Fourth
Republic 292
Gilles Saint-Paul
Part V Synthesis
12 Post-war Germany in the European context:
domestic and external determinants of growth 323
Holger C. Wolf
Index 353
Contributors
Helge Berger
Department of Economics, University of Munich
Isabelle Cassiers
Department of Economics, Catholic University of Louvain
N.F.R. Crafts
Department of Economics, University of Warwick
Barry Eichengreen
Departments of Economics and Political Science,
University of California, Berkeley
Chiarella Esposito
Department of History, University of Mississippi
John Gillingham
Department of History, University of Missouri
Douglas A. Irwin
Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago
Harold James
Department of History, Princeton University
Lucrezia Reichlin
Observatoire Franqaise de Conjonctures Economiques
Albrecht Ritschl
Volkswirtschaftliches Institut, University of Munich
Gilles Saint-Paul
DELTA
Holger C. Wolf
Department of Economics, New York University
VII
Preface
For many years, the decade following World War II existed in a no-man's
land between economics and economic history. The period did not yet
qualify as history for a generation of scholars who had lived through it and
for whom access to the archives was barred by thirty-year rules and various
and sundry bureaucratic obstacles. It was too remote to be of interest to
economists whose forays were frustrated by the fact that organizations like
the International Monetary Fund only began to generate consistent time
series on economic performance in the 1950s.
Recently, however, this began to change. The end of the Cold War
heightened interest in the origins of the conflict. The archives opened, due not
just to the ineluctable forward march of the thirty-year rule but also because
the fall of the Berlin Wall made available new materials. For economists, the
Single Market Program and the Maastricht Treaty awakened interest in the
post-war origins of European economic integration. The difficulties of
economic adjustment in the formerly centrally planned economies of
Eastern Europe led to a quest for precedents in Western Europe's successful
post-World War II recovery. The 50th anniversary of the Bretton Woods
institutions raised the question of whether the time was ripe for their reform
and directed attention toward their post-war origins.
The essays collected in this volume speak to these issues. Most of all,
however, they seek to clearly depict the contours of Europe's post-war
recovery, expose the role of international institutions, and contrast the very
different national experiences.
This volume is the fruit of a project initiated by the Association d'economie
financiere in Paris. I thank Jean-Marie Thiveaud, its director, and Ellen
Plois of the Caisse de Depots. Marc Uzan provided assistance at a critical
stage. Patrick McCartan went above and beyond the call of duty in
shepherding the manuscript into print. Additional support for the editorial
work was provided by the Center for German and European Studies of the
University of California. I am grateful to these individuals and organiz-
ations, but most of all to the authors who contributed to the project.
