ABSTRACT
On July 22, 1944 – in the aftermath of the Great Depression – 44 countries signed the “Bretton Woods Agreements” establishing the International Monetary Fund and its sister organization, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (now commonly known as the World Bank).1 The agreements were so-named after the Mount Washington Hotel at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire – the ski resort that hosted the International Monetary Conference of the United and Associated Nations, where the negotiations over the design of these two international institutions took place. The IMF and the World Bank have since come to be known as the “Bretton Woods” institutions. On December 27, 1945, after 29 countries had ratified the IMF Articles of Agreement, the IMF came into force.
