International Monetary Fund

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is the international organization in charge of facilitating cross-border financial flows. It was created in July 1944, when representatives from 45 countries met in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to discuss global economic affairs in a postwar environment. The goal of the meeting was to create a series of new global economic institutions that would help prevent the disastrous policies that led to and exacerbated the global depression in the interwar period. Their efforts culminated in the creation of three organizations, (1) the IMF, (2) the World Bank, and (3) the International Trade Organization, though the last one, because of opposition in the U.S. Senate, never came into being. When 29 countries signed its Articles of Agreement on December 27, 1945, ...