Robert Triffin

Robert, Baron Triffin (5 October 1911 – 23 February 1993) was a Belgian-American economist best known for his critique (referred to as Triffin's dilemma) of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates.

Life Triffin was born in 1911 in Flobecq. In 1929, he enrolled at the Faculty of Law of the Catholic University of Leuven, to study law and philosophy; in 1934, he also began studying economics, and graduated in 1935.

Bretton Woods critique In 1959, Triffin testified before the United States Congress and warned of serious flaws in the Bretton Woods system. His theory was based on observing the dollar glut, or the accumulation of the United States dollar outside the US. Under the Bretton Woods system, the US had pledged to convert dollars into gold, but by the early 1960s, the glut had caused more dollars to be available outside the US than gold was in its Treasury.

However, running continuing deficits on the current account of the balance of payments resulted in an ever-increasing stock of overseas-held dollars, eroding confidence in the belief that the dollar would remain convertible into gold at the Bretton Woods parity rate of $35 per ounce. |