Keywords: Bretton Woods institutions; Chase Bank; Italy; Iri; United States.
The paper offers new viewpoints in the history of financial relations between Italy and
the United States from the post-World War I era to the post-World War II era. WWII did
not break longstanding institutional-personal ties in the high-banking circles in the two
countries considered. At centre stage here is the banker W.W. Aldrich, chairman of Chase
Bank. Notably, his relationship with Italian economist Alberto Beneduce foreshadows the
one between the president of the World Bank, Eugene Robert Black (former vice-president
of Chase), and the governor of the Bank of Italy, Donato Menichella (former director general
of Beneduce's Iri-Institute for Industrial Reconstruction). Two men from Chase: Aldrich
and Black. Two men from Iri: Beneduce and Menichella. Archival sources here include
Aldrich Papers culled from Baker Library at Harvard Business School. Much remains to
be done in US archives for the study of the economic history of Italy.