Abstract

MATTOS, Fernando Augusto. A Historical Retrospective of the Process of Financial Globalization. Inv. Econ [online]. 2000, vol.60, n.233, pp.113-147. ISSN 0185-1667.

This article presents a retrospective look at the different changes that have taken place in the international economic order, from the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944 up to the present day. The paper highlights the fact that, during the post-war period, the financial institutionalism constructed by the more powerful countries together with the political-ideological environment brought on by the Cold War, were both at the root of any explanation of the expansive cycle experienced by the world economy during the Golden Years of capitalism (1945-1973). The crisis during the 70s, and the way in which the United States began to exercise its world hegemony, represented a breaking away from the model of economic growth maintained during the Golden Years. Changes taking place within the international order (financial deregulation and an increasing American interest rate), beginning in 1979, opened the way for a broadening of financial globalization, and for the adoption of liberal economic policies in the majority of developed capitalist countries, resulting in a negative impact on productive investment and on social indicators.

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