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布雷顿森林体系和金本位制

大多数的国家试图在一战之后恢复金本位制，但它已经在1930年代大萧条期间完全崩溃了。一些经济学家表示，遵守金本位制禁止货币当局快速增加货币供应足以恢复经济。因此，大多数世界领先的国家的代表出席了1944年在新罕布什尔州的布雷顿森林举行的会议，旨在创建一个新的国际货币体系。由于美国占世界的一半以上的生产能力，并且在那个时期占有世界上大多数的黄金，代表们决定以美元来链接世界货币。最后，他们协议应该每盎司黄金可以兑换35美元。
布雷顿森林体系是什么？布雷顿森林体系通常是指从二战结束到1971年使用的国际货币标准。名字的起源是来自会议的地点，1944年在这里建立了国际货币基金组织(IMF)和世界银行(World Bank)。根据历史显示，布雷顿森林体系是各国充分协商为了控制完全独立国家之间的关系的货币标准的第一个实例。

The Bretton Woods System and the gold standard

Introduction

Most of the countries tried to reestablish the gold standard after World War I, but it had been totally collapsed during the Great Depression in 1930s. Some economists said comply with the gold standard had prohibited monetary authorities from increasing the money supply rapidly enough to recover the economies. Therefore, the representatives of most of the world's leading nations met at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in 1944 to create a new international monetary system. The representatives had decided to link the world currencies to the dollar since the United States accounted for over half of the world's manufacturing capacity and held most of the world's gold during that time. At the final, they agreed should be convertible into gold at $35 per ounce.

What is Bretton Woods System? The Bretton Woods system is often refer to the international monetary standard that being used from the end of World War II until 1971. The origin of the name is taken from the venue of the conference in 1944 that had established the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. According to the history, the Bretton Woods system was the first instance of monetary standard that had been fully negotiated in order to control currency relations among fully independent states. The standard was created to combine binding legal obligations with multilateral decision-making conducted through an international organization -- the IMF, endowed with limited supranational authority. During the running of the scheme, it was highly depended on the United States’ preferences and policies.

The International Monetary Fund was officially established on 27th December 1945, when the 29 nations who had participated in the conference of Bretton Woods signed the Articles of Agreement. It commenced its financial operations on 1st March 1947. The IMF is an international organization, which consists of 183 member countries nowadays. The objectives of the IMF are to promote international monetary cooperation by establishing a global monitoring agency that supervises, consults, and collaborates on monetary problems. It facilitates world trade expansion and thereby contributes to the promotion and maintenance of high levels of employment and real income. Furthermore, the IMF ensures exchange rate stability to avoid competitive exchange depreciation. It eliminates foreign exchange restrictions and assists in creating systems of payment for multilateral trade. Moreover, member countries with disequilibrium in their balance of payments are provided with the opportunity to correct their problems by making the financial resources of the IMF available for them.

On the other hand, World Bank is the most significant source of financial aid for developing nations in the world. It provides approximately $16 billion of loans to its client countries per year. It utilizes its financial resources, highly trained staff, and extensive knowledge bas