Brussels International Financial Conference (1920)

[1] The Brussels conference was convened in the context of severe economic, social, financial and sanitary dislocation immediately following World War I, especially in Central and Eastern Europe.

Even so, nearly three-quarters of the delegates were government officials, the rest being central and private bankers, while the other participants including some non-financial businesspeople and academics.

[3]: 437  These were complemented by five papers commissioned by League Secretariat official Walter Layton from some of the most recognized economists of the era, namely Sweden's Gustav Cassel, the United Kingdom's Arthur Cecil Pigou, the Netherlands' Gijsbert Weijer Jan Bruins [nl], France's Charles Gide, and Italy's Maffeo Pantaleoni.

[3]: 443 With hindsight, the conference was rather successful at defining a set of general principles for postwar stabilization around shared aspirations to fiscal discipline, free trade, and sound monetary policy led by independent central banks, a "standard of financial orthodoxy"[5]: 22  on which the delegates reached a remarkably broad consensus.

[6] While the medium-term objectives were clear, the delegates also stated that the return to the gold standard should only be envisaged after proper financial stabilization and structural adjustment.