In ... late 19th century ... major trading nations fixed their currencies in terms of gold. Exchange rates were therefore fixed and these countries had essentially one common currency.
In July 1944, international negotiations were held at ... Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, USA, to identify ... basis of the new monetary system. The participants envisaged ... international monetary system that would determine exchange rate parities on the basis of consultations.
The postwar system was designed to be one of ... fixed but adjustable exchange rates. Member nations of ... IMF were expected to "peg" their currencies within ... narrow band of internationally agreed parities. The US pegged ... dollar in terms of gold and all other nations pegged their currencies in terms of the US dollar.
The breakdown of ... Bretton Woods system began when convertibility of the US dollar into gold ended in ... August 1971. In December 1971, the Smithsonian Agreement resulted in ... major devaluation of the US dollar, and multilateral adjustments in the major exchange rate parities. The US dollar crises of 1973 finally finished off Bretton Woods, when the major countries abandoned ... adjustable peg and floated their currencies against the US dollar.
Since then many countries have adopted ... wide range of exchange rate practices, including independent floats, group floating, pegging against a major currency, and pegging against ... "basket" of currencies such as the SDR (Special Drawing Rights).
Many countries, particularly less developed countries (LDCs) have chosen to peg their currencies to either ... single currency, to specially weighted "baskets" of currencies, or to the basket of currencies used by the IMF to calculate ... value of its SDRs. One benefit of the latter approach is that the IMF provides national exchange authorities with daily information on the value of... SDR basket.
Words you may need:
bandn (зд.) полоса, диапазон
breakdownn (зд.) падение, развал
multilateral adjustmentsмногосторонние корректировки
abandonv отказываться (от чего-л.)