Back-to-back books examine world finance

A University of Waterloo professor has accomplished an unusual publishing feat: Two books in one summer.

Eric Helleiner, acting chair of the Department of Political Science, spent 11 years poring over archived transcripts and memos to write Forgotten Foundations of Bretton Woods, which has been released to mark the 70th anniversary of the Bretton Woods agreement.

Financial leaders from 44 allied nations built the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1944 as a framework for fairer economic development after the Second World War.

He researched The Status Quo Crisis, an analysis of the financial collapse of 2008, while on sabbatical two years ago. The back-to-back release of the books — Bretton Woods is already on shelves, Status Quo Crisis follows shortly (although now available on Kindle) — is pure coincidence.

Both, however, discuss missed opportunities coming out of major economic events.

“When the 2008 financial crisis happened, the worse since the Great Depression, there were a lot of people talking about how it was a Bretton Woods moment,” he says. "It seemed like this was a moment when you could restructure the system (had there been) the political will to say, 'This is really messed up. We’ve got to reform.’”

Instead, remarkably little changed. Governments imposed a handful of new rules on financial markets. Few of the decision-makers who caused the crisis landed in court.

And emerging powers that could have demanded a different economic order — namely China and India — opted not to do so.

The Bretton Woods Agreement never reached its full potential. Meeting in New Hampshire July 1-22, 1944, Bretton Woods delegates agreed to set the American dollar as the world’s benchmark currency. They regarded international development as essential to peace and mutual prosperity.

Conventional history tends to regard Bretton Woods as a top-down, British-American plan that swept up weaker, emerging nations as tag-alongs. U.S. economist Harry Dexter White and a British colleague, John Maynard Keynes, were the lead architects of the conference.

Helleiner argues that developing regions had great sway and influence — not just at Bretton Woods, but in talks going back to the 1930s.

A shift in priorities soon overtook the ideals of Bretton Woods. The West built post-war economic strategies around fighting communism. China became a communist power and left the agreement; Soviet communism blanketed eastern Europe.

But key institutions created by Bretton Woods — the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank — remain.

“If you had asked Keynes and White whether those institutions would have been around for 70 years, with almost universal membership, still seen as important, they would have considered that an enormous achievement,” said Professor Helleiner. “It’s pretty remarkable.”

 

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Prof receives NSF award, engineering fellowship

This article was originally published in the Eng-E-News newsletter.

Roydon Fraser, a mechanical and mechatronics professor, received the National Science Foundation (NSF) Outstanding Long Term Faculty Advisor Award presented to him at the EcoCAR2 competition finals held in Washington June 13. Fraser, whose research expertise includes fuel cells and stability control, is a long-term supervisor of the University of Waterloo's Alternative Fuels Team.

Fraser was honoured with the same award  at the conclusion of the EcoCAR competition in 2010 for providing guidance, administrative support and leadership that the NSF says is fundamental to the students' understanding of the program deliverables and keeps the student teams on course throughout the program. 

The U.S Department of Energy also recognized Fraser for his participation in EcoCar 2: Plugging in the Future, awarding him the DOE Applied Automotive Engineering Fellowship this academic year in recognition of his contributions to the Advanced Vehicle Technology Competitions (AVTC) Applied Automotive Engineering Curriculum Project (AAECP).  

The AAECP is a unique project designed to leverage the knowledge and expertise of EcoCAR 2 faculty advisors to create a body of practical automotive engineering knowledge that is gained through hands-on vehicle competitions. In effect, faculty members create one ‘module’ of self-taught, online material related to applied automotive engineering.

Professor Fraser's contribution in the competition will be made available to all teams as a way to ease the educational burden on faculty year-to-year as they deal with high student turnover on EcoCAR teams. This bank of knowledge helps engineering students new to the competition hit the ground running and move quickly towards being a competitive team.

 

The Faculty of Engineering congratulates Professor Roydon Fraser.

 

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Wearable technology exhibit and other notes

Systems Design Engineering students will be showcasing product designs in the Sedra Student Design Centre in Engineering 5 today from 12:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. as part of the Wearables Design Exhibit. A dozen student groups in their third year of study will present and demonstrate various prototypes based on sensors that monitor biological signals, track human motion, respond to touch sensations and use cameras.

The student teams were required to select a problem area, identify a design problem objective, solicit solution needs from stakeholders, and lay the groundwork for developing innovative concepts, the prototypes of which will be on display.

On a personal note: I would like to thank my colleagues in Marketing & Strategic Communications for taking care of the Daily Bulletin in my absence these last two weeks.

 

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