This paper revisits Canada's pioneering experience with floating exchange rate over the period 19501962. It examines whether the floating rate was the best option for Canada in the 1950s by developing and estimating a New Keynesian small open economy model of the Canadian economy. The model is...

The dollar’s depreciation during the early floating rate period, 1973–1981, was a symptom of the Great Inflation. In that environment, sterilized foreign exchange interventions were ineffective in halting the dollar’s decline, but they showed a limited ability to smooth dollar movements....

"By the early 1960s, outstanding U.S. dollar liabilities began to exceed the U.S. gold stock, suggesting that the United States could not completely maintain its pledge to convert dollars into gold at the official price. This raised uncertainty about the Bretton Woods parity grid, and...