抄録
This paper will discuss on the planning process of the postwar international monetary system, especially on the role of Harry Dexter White (1892-1948) who served as a high official in the Division of Monetary Research of the Treasury Department under Henry Morgenthau, Jr. during the New Deal period. The 1920s saw a considerable decline of European economies, and the United States kept pouring much capital there. The American gold stock increased at an ever-accelerating speed, so that it seemed necessary for the United States to extend the credit and create additional domestic purchasing power to make up for the economic contraction of gold deficit countries. But Benjamin Strong, the first Governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York during 1914-1928 took cautious stand because the free exchange of gold worldwide did not materialize during his term. John Maynard Keynes whose main target was to improve the massive unemployment insisted on the recovery of private investment through debt readjustment including global as well as domestic procedures during the Great Depression. He advocated the necessity of raising price levels. Harry White approached the same issue with rather different perspectives. He was completely in line with the early New Deal's inflationary monetary policies leading to the depreciation of the dollar. He supported domestic public works program through deficit financing. Further he insisted that it would be necessary to establish international organization that could find ways to redistribute the world gold supply. The original White plan intended to resume world trade and supply capital for that purpose through the Stabilization Fund (later IMF) and the Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The bank was supposed to issue non-interest bank notes (later to be called Unitas). But these "bold" features diminished as the plan sought support both from the American Congress and British cabinet.
