Imagine you have to submit this essay as part of your application to work at the central bank of country X.

Imagine you have to submit this essay as part of your application to work at the central bank of country X.  You have been asked to demonstrate your knowledge of the classical gold standard, interwar, Bretton Woods, and the present ‘dirty float’ era by responding to the prompt below.

“Write an essay in which you examine the way in which (a.) cooperation, (b.) convertibility of currencies to gold, (c.) maintenance of a fixed or pegged exchange rate, OR  (d.) the exercise of power played an important role in the operation of exchange rate regimes from the 1870s to the present.  Please be sure to draw on evidence from the 1870s to the present to defend your argument about the role of ONE of these four factors.”