The Bretton Woods Agreement was negotiated in July 1944 by delegates from 44 countries to the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. Thus, the name “Bretton Woods Agreement.The Encyclopedia of Business in Today`s World” serves as a general, non-technical resource for students, faculty, and librarians who want to understand the development of the economy as practiced in the United States and internationally. All the bretton Woods countries have agreed to a fixed peg to the US dollar with diversions of only 1%. Countries were required to monitor and maintain their currency anchors, which they achieved primarily by using their currency to buy or sell U.S. dollars as needed. The Bretton Woods system has thus minimized the volatility of international exchange rates, which has benefited international trade relations. Greater stability in foreign exchange operations has also been a success factor in supporting the World Bank`s international loans and grants. President Richard M. Nixon devalued the U.S. dollar against gold in 1971 over fears that the U.S. gold supply would no longer be sufficient to cover the number of dollars in circulation.
After a scramble for gold reserves, he declared a temporary suspension of the dollar`s convertibility into gold. By 1973, the Bretton Woods system had collapsed. Countries were then free to choose any exchange agreement for their currency, except to peg their value to the price of gold. For example, they could link its value to another country`s currency or a basket of currencies, or simply let it fluctuate freely and allow market forces to determine its value against the currencies of other countries. The IMF`s GOAL was to monitor exchange rates and identify countries that needed global monetary support. The World Bank, originally called the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, was created to manage the funds available to provide assistance to countries that had been physically and financially devastated by the Second World War. In the twenty-first century, the IMF has 189 member countries and continues to support global monetary cooperation. At the same time, the World Bank helps promote these efforts through its loans and grants to governments.
The Bretton Woods system covered 44 countries. These countries have come together to regulate and promote cross-border international trade. As with all monetary anchor systems, monetary anchors should help stabilize trade in goods and services, as well as financing. The Bretton Woods Agreement remains an important event in world financial history. The two Bretton Woods institutions it established within the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank played an important role in the reconstruction of Europe after the Second World War. As a result, both institutions have maintained their founding goals while continuing to serve the interests of today`s world government. Under the Bretton Woods system, gold was the basis of the U.S. dollar and other currencies were pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar.
The Bretton Woods system came to a virtual end in the early 1970s when President Richard M. Nixon announced that the United States would no longer exchange gold for U.S. currency. 2009 RUSA Outstanding Business ReferenceCompanies in today`s world are becoming more and more diverse. Trading, even of an individual, can mean working on a global scale through a variety of new media where opportunities of all kinds are rapidly emerging. The boundaries, scope, content, structures, and processes of a business activity can turn into completely different boundaries over the course of a project. Contemporary companies, and certainly future companies, find it their duty to adapt to the environmental and economic sustainability requirements of others who inhabit our world. Although the Bretton Woods conference itself lasted only three weeks, preparations had been under way for several years. The main designers of the Bretton Woods system were the famous British economist John Maynard Keynes and the US Treasury chief economist Harry Dexter White.
Keynes` hope was to establish a powerful global central bank called the Clearing Union and issue a new international reserve currency called Bancor. White`s plan called for a smaller loan fund and a larger role for the U.S. dollar, rather than creating a new currency. Charles Wankel is Professor of Management at St. John`s University, New York. He received his Ph.D. from New York University, where he was inducted into the Beta Gamma Sigma National Honor Society for Business Disciplines. The American Assembly of Columbia University has identified him as one of the best experts in total quality management in the country. He received the Outstanding Service in Management Education & Development award at the 2004 and 2005 meetings of the Academy of Management (AOM).
AOM also awarded him the best paper in management education award in 1991, and he was selected to serve as head of AOM departments each year for over a decade. With Robert DeFillippi, he edited a multi-volume series on management education issues for AOM: the Research in Management Education & Development series. Wankel is the lead founder and director of scientific virtual communities for management professors and currently runs more than seven mailing lists with thousands of attendees in more than 70 countries. (A Google search for “Charles Wankel” gives you an awareness of the extent of his online notoriety.) He co-authored a bestseller, Management, in the 1980s with Prentice Hall, published a scientific book on the development of interorganizational strategy in Poland, and numerous scientific articles, monographs and chapters. He has extensive international experience ranging from the United Arab Emirates to Vietnam, Japan, Lithuania, Malaysia, Singapore, Poland, Czech Republic and Mexico. .