THE BANK FOR INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS AND THE RISE OF FINANCIAL AND POLITICAL INSTABILITY, 1919-1948

Abstract

This thesis argues that the creation of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) was part of a significantly broader plan to stabilize international finance through the promotion of core democratic and capitalist policies to thwart Soviet communism and stimulate Western private commercial interests. In particular, a triune core is posited to explain the enduring coordination and cooperation exhibited by the United States, Great Britain, and Germany in creating the world’s first international financial institution, as well as in defending it, once the Bank was targeted for liquidation for alleged financial malfeasance. The establishment of the BIS formalized the nascent underpinnings of a long-standing interest in creating an international bank by the Bank of England, the Reichsbank and the US Federal Reserve. One of the ironies of this multinational birth was the tremendous instability that was injected into global finance and the postwar geopolitical situation just as the Bank for International Settlements became established in the early years of the Great Depression. The source of these destabilizing tendencies could be seen to arise from the same financial instruments which were extolled as the keys to stabilizing international finance: access to internationally recognized credit and loans. This thesis provides a coherent narrative of events involved in the conception, creation and operation of the Bank in the period from the signing of the Versailles Treaty in 1919 to the decision to rescue the BIS from liquidation in 1948.