Jeffrey Garten was Dean of the Yale School of Management until 2005, before that Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade, and before that a Wall Street investment banker. In his new book, Three Days at Camp David: How a Secret Meeting in 1971 Transformed the Global Economy, he tells a detailed narrative of the forces and protagonists that led up to the “Nixon Shock” and the breakdown in the gold standard that altered the post-war economic order.

In a conversation with Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak, BCG’s global chief economist, Garten argues that the “Nixon Shock” was the right decision, and that the US is experiencing many similar pressures today, and that — while calling a turning point is difficult — the global monetary order may be nearing one.

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