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On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the suspension of the convertibility of dollars into gold by the U.S. government, which led to the demise of the Bretton Woods international monetary system (1944), this article offers a contribution to understanding the key features of Bretton Woods. It analyses the mid-term developments that triggered its crisis in the early Seventies, and why nowadays the U.S. currency still serves as the pillar of world trade and payments, and is the most important reserve currency and means of payment. Today these questions are all the more worth addressing as the U.S. economy share in total world trade is on a downward trend and new currencies (Euro, Renminbi) are coming to centre stage in world economic affairs. The author traces the main features of the international monetary system born out of the end of 19th century Gold Standard, and laid out at Bretton Woods; the various reasons behind the origins of its collapse during the 1960s; a reflection on the central role of the U.S. dollar in world trade and payments throughout the last fifty years against the framework of the rampant ascendancy of new global financial players. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking as a starting point Maria Rosaria Ferrarese's last book Promesse mancate. Dove ci ha portato il capitalismo finanziario, the author analyzes a number of legal issues that emerged after Wall Street'collapse, during the summer of 2007. According to the author of this contribution, the causes of the economic crisis are connected with a series of structural legal reforms of the banking system in Western countries, which have taken place since the Nineties of the last century. The author also analyzes the transformations of the contemporary State, highlighting how neoliberal theories have modified traditional tasks and functions of the State, giving rise to a neo-liberal constitutionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The macro-developmental approach for explaining cross-border investment has been extended and refined, but the main emphasis in research has been in the manufacturing (real sector) industry. Despite the strategic importance of banking in economic development, there has been no corresponding economic emphasis and respective research. The sudden rise of Japanese banks in the capacity of multinationals in global finance from the 1970s is explored within a macro-developmental, stage-theoretic framework. JEL Codes: G21