Bretton Woods Agreement
About Bretton Woods Agreement
In July 1944, 730 delegates from 44 nations met at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to design the postwar financial system. They created the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The agreement established the US dollar as the worlds reserve currency, pegged to gold at 35 per ounce. Other currencies were pegged to the dollar. The system provided stability for 27 years until Nixon ended dollar convertibility in 1971. Bretton Woods shaped the entire postwar economic order. Keynes, representing Britain, proposed a neutral international currency called bancor, but the US insisted on the dollar.
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