 By observing how the Canadian dollar behaves against the U.S. dollar, foreign exchange economists can indirectly observe internal behaviours and patterns in the U.S. economy that could not be seen by direct observation.The Canadian dollar has fully evolved into a global reserve currency only since the 1970s, when it was floated against all other world currencies.Some economists have attributed the rise of importance of the Canadian dollar to the long-term effects of the Nixon Shock that effectively ended the Bretton Woods system of global finance.