Financial history: what was the Bretton Woods system (1944–1971)?

Summer 1944. The war is still going on, but countries have begun to think about the post-war world: how will currencies be exchanged for one another, and who will lend to ruined economies?

1. The conference. According to the World Bank archives, the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference took place on 1–22 July 1944 in Bretton Woods, in the US state of New Hampshire, at the Mount Washington Hotel. 730 delegates took part.
2. How many countries? The World Bank archives say 44 countries. The International Monetary Fund's own history page, however, mentions representatives of 45 countries. The difference may depend on which delegations are counted.
3. Two institutions. At the conference the founding documents of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the core of the World Bank Group) were agreed. The founding agreements of both entered into force on 27 December 1945, that is, the organisations were formally established on that day.
4. The essence of the system. Other currencies were pegged to the US dollar, and the dollar could be exchanged for gold at a fixed price. As a result, exchange rates were relatively stable.
5. The end. According to the Federal Reserve history website, on 15 August 1971 President Richard Nixon announced that the conversion of dollars into gold would be suspended. This decision, described as "temporary", became permanent and soon put an end to the Bretton Woods system.
6. Today's legacy. The IMF and the World Bank still operate today, but currencies are no longer tied to gold: in many countries their exchange rate is set by the market.

Example (prepared by the author, hypothetical figures). In the Bretton Woods era an exporting company knew that the exchange rate would hardly change the following year, and it was easy to plan its prices in advance. Today, however, an exporter such as "Samarqand Tekstil" that signs a contract for 100 000 dollars and knows that payment will come in six months must take into account that a change in the exchange rate over this period may either increase or decrease its revenue in soum. That is why managing currency risk has become a separate task in modern finance.