Monetary management within major markets

The Bretton Woods system of monetary management established the rules for commercial and financial relations among the world’s major industrial states in the mid 20th century. It was the first example of a fully negotiated monetary order intended to govern monetary relations among independent nation-states, according to Wikipedia.

The online encyclopedia says that in preparing to rebuild the international economic system as World War Two was still raging, 730 delegates from 44 nations gathered at the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States, for the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference.

“The delegates deliberated upon and signed the Bretton Woods Agreements during the first three weeks of July 1944.

“Setting up a system of rules, institutions, and procedures to regulate the international monetary system, the planners at Bretton Woods established the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD ), which today is part of the World Bank Group. These organisations became operational in 1945 after a sufficient number of countries had ratified the agreement.

“The chief features of the Bretton Woods system were an obligation for each country to adopt a monetary policy that maintained the exchange rate of its currency within a fixed value – plus or minus one per cent – in terms of gold and that the IMF should have the ability to bridge temporary imbalances of payments.”