BRETTON WOODS CONFERENCE

BRETTON WOODS CONFERENCE, also known as the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, held in New Hampshire in July 1944, was attended by forty-four nations. The conference was held to make plans for post–World War II international economic cooperation similar to the groundwork for political cooperation laid by the Atlantic Charter. The delegates reached agreement on an International Monetary Fund to promote exchange stability and expansion of international trade and on an International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which became the World Bank. Four of the nations attending, Haiti, Liberia, New Zealand, and the Soviet Union, did not sign.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dam, Kenneth W. The Rules of the Game: Reform and Evolution in the International Monetary System. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982.

Kunz, Diane B. Butter and Guns: America's Cold War Economic Diplomacy. New York: Free Press, 1997.

Charles S.Campbell/a. g.

See alsoInternational Monetary Fund .

Bretton Woods Conference (officially the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference) It met at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in July 1944. It was summoned on the initiative of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt to establish a system of international monetary cooperation and prevent severe financial crises such as that of 1929, which had precipitated the Great Depression. Representatives of 44 countries agreed to establish the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to provide cash reserves for member states faced by deficits in their balance of payments, and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, or World Bank, to provide credit to states requiring financial investment in major economic projects.