The Case for a New Bretton Woods

After the 2008–9 global financial crisis, reforms to promote stability, social inclusion, and sustainability were promised but not delivered. As a result, the global economic situation, marred by inequality, volatility, and climate breakdown, remains dysfunctional.

Now, the economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic offers us a second chance. Kevin Gallagher and Richard Kozul-Wright argue that we must grasp it by implementing sweeping reforms to how we govern global money, finance, and trade. Without global leaders prepared to boldly rewrite the rules to promote a prosperous, just, and sustainable post-Covid world economic order — a Bretton Woods moment for the twenty-first century — we risk being engulfed by climate chaos and political dysfunction.

The Case for a New Bretton Woods provides a blueprint for change that no one interested in the future of our planet can afford to miss.