In the case of a fundamental disequilibrium, when the balance of pay-ments problems are not of a temporary nature, a country could apply for permission from the IMF to devalue or revalue its currency. Such a per-manent change in the parity rate of exchange was rare. Table 2.1 sum-marizes the history of exchange rate adjustments over the Bretton Woods period for the major industrial countries.
We notice, then, that the Bretton Woods system, although essentially a fixed, or pegged, exchange rate system, allowed for changes in exchange rates when economic circumstances warranted such changes. In actuality, the system is best described as an adjustable peg. The system may also be described as a gold exchange standard because the key currency, the dol-lar, was convertible into gold for official holders of dollars (such as central banks and treasuries).
CENTRAL BANK INTERVENTION DURING BRETTON WOODS
By signing the Bretton Woods agreement, countries agreed to protect their exchange rate from moving up or down from the agreed-upon rate. This agreement implied that central banks had to take on a more active role in making sure that market pressure did not change the exchange rate. The various central banks achieved this goal by buying and selling their domestic currencies on the foreign exchange market. The central bank intervention can be illustrated using the trade flow model developed in Chapter 1. Assume that the U.S. and the U.K. are trading with each other, and that the U.K. residents start demanding more Fords (a U.S. good). In the first chapter you learned that this would imply a shift in the supply curve for pounds. U.K. traders would be more willing to supply their pounds to banks in exchange for dollars, because the traders want to buy U.S. goods. Banks see more customers supplying pounds and demanding dollars, causing banks to want to depreciate the pound. Figure 2.2 illustrates the shift in the supply curve causing the banks to want to depreciate the pound from a starting dollar/pound exchange rate of 2.00 to a new equilibrium exchange rate of 1.80.
To prevent the pound from depreciating the Bank of England (the central bank in the U.K.) has to intervene in the foreign exchange mar-ket. The Bank of England must intervene by buying up pounds and sell-ing dollars that they have already stored in their bank vaults. Figure 2.2