Bretton Woods Conference International Monetary Fund International Bank for Reconstruction and Development World Bank Group Bretton Woods system currency reform in Western Germany Marshall Plan German economic miracle economic boom French economy rebounded war reparations Germany Japan F United Kingdom satellite states reparations Europe German Soviet Soviet Union E Italy
At the Bretton Woods Conference in July 1944, the Allied nations drew up an economic framework for the post-war world. The agreement created the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), which later became part of the World Bank Group. The Bretton Woods system lasted until 1973. Recovery began with the mid-1948 currency reform in Western Germany, and was sped up by the liberalisation of European economic policy that the U.S Marshall Plan economic aid (1948–1951) both directly and indirectly caused. The post-1948 West German recovery has been called the German economic miracle. Italy also experienced an economic boom and the French economy rebounded. By contrast, the United Kingdom was in a state of economic ruin, and although receiving a quarter of the total Marshall Plan assistance, more than any other European country, it continued in relative economic decline for decades. The Soviet Union, despite enormous human and material losses, also experienced rapid increase in production in the immediate post-war era, having seized and transferred most of Germany's industrial plants and exacted war reparations from its satellite states. Japan recovered much later. China returned to its pre-war industrial production by 1952.
