The Bretton Woods Agreement In 1967, a Chicago bank refused a college professor by the name of Milton Friedman a loan in pound sterling because he had intended to use the funds to short the British currency. Friedman, ho had perceived sterling to be priced too high against the dollar, wanted to sell the currency, then later buy it back to repay the bank after the currency declined, thus pocketing a quick profit. The bank's refusal to grant the loan was due to the Bretton Woods Agreement, established twenty years earlier, which fixed national currencies against the dollar, and set the dollar at a rate of $35 per ounce of gold. M. Friedman The Bretton Woods Agreement, set up in 1944, aimed at installing international monetary stability by preventing money from fleeing across nations, and restricting speculation in the world currencies Prior to the Agreement, the gold exchange standard--prevailing between 1876 and World War I--dominated the international economic system. Under the gold. exchange, currencies gained a new phase of stability as they were backed by the price of gold. It abolished the age-old practice used by kings and rulers of arbitrarily debasing money and triggering inflation.