The Sterling area and economic disintegration

While the sterling area was not strictly an example of monetary integration, it did provide a sustained framework for international monetary relations among a diverse group of large and small, high and low income per capita economies for almost thirty years from1945 to 1972. That it persisted for so long through the transformation of the international monetary system is remarkable. This article establishes a periodisation for the analysis of the sterling area and identifies the changing distribution of benefits among members. It also attributes the system’s longevity to the multilateral external cooperation that supported it during the disintegration of the BrettonWoods exchange rate system