The Bretton Woods system of monetary management established the rules for commercial relations among 44 countries, including the United States, Canada, Western European countries, and Australia after the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement. The Bretton Woods system was the first example of a fully negotiated monetary order intended to govern monetary relations among independent states. The Bretton Woods system required countries to guarantee convertibility of their currencies into U.S. dollars to within 1% of fixed parity rates, with the dollar convertible to gold bullion for foreign governments and central banks at US$35 per troy ounce of fine gold. It also envisioned greater cooperation among countries in order to prevent future competitive devaluations, and thus established the International Monetary Fund to monitor exchange rates and lend reserve currencies to countries with balance of payments deficits. Wikipedia