Bretton Woods Institutions

The Bretton Woods Institutions (BWIs) are the World Bank (originally International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, IBRD) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), founded in July 1944 at a meeting of delegates of 44 countries in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire (USA). At the same time they agreed on fixing exchange rates of their currencies with the U.S. dollar. The purpose of these arrangements was to stabilize international monetary system and financial relations. The plans for the system of Bretton Woods were developed by two economists of the time, the American minister of state in the U.S. treasury, Harry Dexter White, and the British economist John Maynard Keynes.