ABSTRACT
The INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (IMF)'s Jamaica Conference in 1976 was an attempt to adapt the international financial agreements established in 1944 at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to a changed world economic system. While that system worked well in its early years (see BRETTON WOODS SYSTEM), it came under increasing strain in the mid-1960s. Currency crises became more numerous and violent, and followed each other at shorter intervals. Convertibility of the dollar into gold was suspended on 15 August 1971 and the dollar was devalued in terms of most currencies in the Smithsonian Agreement in December 1971.
