Frameworks for International Monetary and Economic Co-Operation under the Bretton Woods System

This chapter first reviews how the OECD came to be deeply involved in the United Kingdom balance of payments adjustment issues prior to the British pound devaluation of 1967 and thereafter. It then reviews how international economic co-operation started among Western European countries after the end of World War II, how the OECD was established in 1961, how it was structured at its beginning, why Japan was not invited to join it as an original member country together with Western European countries, the United States and Canada, and how Japan joined it as its first member country from Asia in 1964.