Triffin: Dilemma or Myth?

40 Pages Posted: 17 Jan 2018 Last revised: 10 Feb 2023

See all articles by Michael D. Bordo

Michael D. Bordo

Rutgers University, New Brunswick - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Robert N. McCauley

University of Oxford - Oxford Centre for Global History; Boston University, Global Development Policy Center

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: January 2018

Abstract

Triffin gained enormous influence by reviving the interwar story that gold scarcity threatened deflation. In particular, he held that central banks needed to accumulate claims on the United States to back money growth. But the claims would eventually surpass the US gold stock and then central banks would inevitably stage a run on it. He feared that the resulting high US interest rates would cause global deflation. However, we show that the US gold position after WWII was no worse than the UK position in 1900. Yet it took WWI to break sterling’s gold link. And better and feasible US policies could have kept Bretton Woods going.This history serves as a backdrop to our critical review of two later extensions of Triffin. One holds that the dollar’s reserve role required US current account deficits. This current account Triffin is popular, but anachronistic, and flawed in logic and fact. Nevertheless, it pops up in debates over the euro’s and the renminbi’s reserve roles. A fiscal Triffin holds that global demand for safe assets will either remain dangerously unsatisfied, or force excessive US fiscal debt. Less flawed, this story posits implausibly inflexible demand for and supply of safe assets. Thus, these stories do not convince in their own terms. Moreover, each lacks Triffin’s clear cross-over point from a stable system to an unstable one.Triffin’s seeming predictive success leads economists to wrap his brand around dissimilar stories. Yet Triffin’s dilemma in its most general form correctly points to the conflicts and difficulties that arise when a national currency plays a role as an international public good.

Suggested Citation

Bordo, Michael D. and McCauley, Robert N. and McCauley, Robert N., Triffin: Dilemma or Myth? (January 2018). NBER Working Paper No. w24195, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3101993

Michael D. Bordo (Contact Author)

Rutgers University, New Brunswick - Department of Economics ( email )

New Brunswick, NJ
United States

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Robert N. McCauley

Boston University, Global Development Policy Center ( email )

67 Bay State Road
Boston, MA 02215
United States

University of Oxford - Oxford Centre for Global History ( email )

Mansfield Road
Oxford, Oxfordshire OX1 4AU
United Kingdom

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