In this interview, Alexandre Lamfalussy, Economic Adviser and Head of the Monetary and Economic Department of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) from 1976 to 1985, discusses the reasons he joined the BIS in 1976 and explains the nature of his role at that time.

In this interview, Alexandre Lamfalussy, Economic Adviser and Head of the Monetary and Economic Department of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) from 1976 to 1985, discusses the consequences on the scope of action of the BIS brought about by the Jamaica Accords. These agreements, signed on 8 January 1976, marked a break with the Bretton Woods system by providing a legal basis for the system of floating exchange rates practised since 1973, formalising the demonetisation of gold and enshrining Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) as an international reserve asset.

In this interview, Alexandre Lamfalussy, Economic Adviser and Head of the Monetary and Economic Department of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) from 1976 to 1985 and General Manager of the BIS from 1985 to 1993, discusses the central role played by the BIS with regard to the Committee of Governors of the Central Banks of the Member States of the European Economic Community (EEC), set up in 1964. He also describes how the ‘Delors Committee’, established in 1988 to study and propose concrete stages for the progressive realisation of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), organised its work. Alexandre Lamfalussy goes on to emphasise how this experience enabled him to set up the structures of the European Monetary Institute, created in Frankfurt on 1 January 1994, relatively quickly.

In this interview, Alexandre Lamfalussy, Economic Adviser and Head of the Monetary and Economic Department of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) from 1976 to 1985 and General Manager of the BIS from 1985 to 1993, explains how the dominant Keynesian economic policy gradually gave way to a monetarist policy during the 1970s and up to the mid-1980s, and describes how this change in paradigm was perceived within the BIS.