Nearly a half-century before the financial crisis of 2008, there was another time when reforming the world monetary system was on everyone’s lips and many academics and policy makers were developing and attempting to promote plans for its reconstruction before illiquidity, speculation and loss...

I examine two competing proposals for reforming and reviving confidence in the international monetary regime. Robert Triffin introduced and championed the proposal for centralized reserves. Fritz Machlup championed the proposal for flexible rates originally introduced by Milton Friedman. Triffin...

Economist Fritz Machlup, the mentor and teacher of Edith Penrose, applied an opportunity cost-focused approach to the strategy and organization of his NGO for world monetary system reform. The NGO was the Bellagio Group, formed by Machlup and partners Robert Triffin and William Fellner to...