The dollar’s status as the global reserve currency was cemented in the aftermath of World War II by the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference, in which forty-four countries agreed to the creation of the IMF and the World Bank. At Bretton Woods, a system of exchange rates was created wherein each country pegged the value of its currency to the dollar, which itself was convertible to gold at the rate of $35 per ounce. This was designed to provide stability, and prevent the “beggar-thy-neighbor” currency wars of the 1930s—a response to the Great Depression—by which countries abandoned the gold standard and devalued their currencies to try to gain a competitive advantage.
