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International Monetary Fund

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world."[1] Formed in 1944, started on 27 December 1945,[9] at the Bretton Woods Conference primarily by the ideas of Harry Dexter White and John Maynard Keynes,[10] it came into formal existence in 1945 with 29 member countries and the goal of reconstructing the international monetary system. It now plays a central role in the management of balance of payments difficulties and international financial crises.[11] Countries contribute funds to a pool through a quota system from which countries experiencing balance of payments problems can borrow money. As of 2016, the fund had XDR 477 billion (about US$667 billion).[9] The IMF is regarded as the global lender of last resort.

International Monetary Fund
IMF Headquarters (Washington, DC)
AbbreviationIMF
Formation27 December 1945; 77 years ago (1945-12-27)
TypeInternational financial institution
PurposePromote international monetary co-operation, facilitate international trade, foster sustainable economic growth, make resources available to members experiencing balance of payments difficulties, prevent and assist with recovery from international financial crises[1]
HeadquartersWashington, D.C., U.S.
Coordinates38°53′56″N 77°2′39″W / 38.89889°N 77.04417°W / 38.89889; -77.04417
Region
Worldwide
Membership
190 countries (189 UN countries and Kosovo)[2]
Official language
English[3]
Managing Director
Kristalina Georgieva
First Deputy Managing Director
Gita Gopinath[4]
Chief Economist
Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas[5]
Main organ
Board of Governors
Parent organization
 United Nations[6][7]
Budget (2022)
$1.2 billion USD[8]
Staff
2,400[1]
WebsiteIMF.org

Through the fund and other activities such as the gathering of statistics and analysis, surveillance of its members' economies, and the demand for particular policies,[12] the IMF works to influence the economies of its member countries.[13] The organization's objectives stated in the Articles of Agreement are:[14] to promote international monetary co-operation, international trade, high employment, exchange-rate stability, sustainable economic growth, and making resources available to member countries in financial difficulty.[15] IMF funds come from two major sources: quotas and loans. Quotas, which are pooled funds of member nations, generate most IMF funds. The size of a member's quota depends on its economic and financial importance in the world. Nations with greater economic significance have larger quotas. The quotas are increased periodically as a means of boosting the IMF's resources in the form of special drawing rights.[16]

The current managing director (MD) and Chairwoman of the IMF is Bulgarian economist Kristalina Georgieva, who has held the post since October 1, 2019.[17] Indian-American economist Gita Gopinath, who previously served as Chief Economist, was appointed as First Deputy Managing Director, effective January 21, 2022.[18] Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas replaced Gopinath as Chief Economist on January 24, 2022.[19]

Functions

 
Board of Governors International Monetary Fund (1999)

According to the IMF itself, it works to foster global growth and economic stability by providing policy advice and financing the members by working with developing countries to help them achieve macroeconomic stability and reduce poverty.[20] The rationale for this is that private international capital markets function imperfectly and many countries have limited access to financial markets. Such market imperfections, together with balance-of-payments financing, provide the justification for official financing, without which many countries could only correct large external payment imbalances through measures with adverse economic consequences.[21] The IMF provides alternate sources of financing such as the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility.[citation needed]

Upon the founding of the IMF, its three primary functions were:

The IMF's role was fundamentally altered by the floating exchange rates after 1971. It shifted to examining the economic policies of countries with IMF loan agreements to determine whether a shortage of capital was due to economic fluctuations or economic policy. The IMF also researched what types of government policy would ensure economic recovery.[22] A particular concern of the IMF was to prevent financial crises, such as those in Mexico in 1982, Brazil in 1987, East Asia in 1997–98, and Russia in 1998, from spreading and threatening the entire global financial and currency system. The challenge was to promote and implement a policy that reduced the frequency of crises among emerging market countries, especially the middle-income countries which are vulnerable to massive capital outflows.[25] Rather than maintaining a position of oversight of only exchange rates, their function became one of surveillance of the overall macroeconomic performance of member countries. Their role became a lot more active because the IMF now manages economic policy rather than just exchange rates.

In addition, the IMF negotiates conditions on lending and loans under their policy of conditionality,[22] which was established in the 1950s.[23] Low-income countries can borrow on concessional terms, which means there is a period of time with no interest rates, through the Extended Credit Facility (ECF), the Standby Credit Facility (SCF) and the Rapid Credit Facility (RCF). Non-concessional loans, which include interest rates, are provided mainly through the Stand-By Arrangements (SBA), the Flexible Credit Line (FCL), the Precautionary and Liquidity Line (PLL), and the Extended Fund Facility. The IMF provides emergency assistance via the Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI) to members facing urgent balance-of-payments needs.[26]

Surveillance of the global economy

The IMF is mandated to oversee the international monetary and financial system and monitor the economic and financial policies of its member countries.[27] This activity is known as surveillance and facilitates international co-operation.[28] Since the demise of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates in the early 1970s, surveillance has evolved largely by way of changes in procedures rather than through the adoption of new obligations.[27] The responsibilities changed from those of guardians to those of overseers of members' policies.

The Fund typically analyses the appropriateness of each member country's economic and financial policies for achieving orderly economic growth, and assesses the consequences of these policies for other countries and for the global economy.[27] For instance, The IMF played a significant role in individual countries, such as Armenia and Belarus, in providing financial support to achieve stabilization financing from 2009 to 2019.[29] The maximum sustainable debt level of a polity, which is watched closely by the IMF, was defined in 2011 by IMF economists to be 120%.[30] Indeed, it was at this number that the Greek economy melted down in 2010.[31]

 
IMF Data Dissemination Systems participants:
  IMF member using SDDS
  IMF member using GDDS
  IMF member, not using any of the DDSystems
  non-IMF entity using SDDS
  non-IMF entity using GDDS
  no interaction with the IMF

In 1995, the International Monetary Fund began to work on data dissemination standards with the view of guiding IMF member countries to disseminate their economic and financial data to the public. The International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) endorsed the guidelines for the dissemination standards and they were split into two tiers: The General Data Dissemination System (GDDS) and the Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS).

The executive board approved the SDDS and GDDS in 1996 and 1997, respectively, and subsequent amendments were published in a revised Guide to the General Data Dissemination System. The system is aimed primarily at statisticians and aims to improve many aspects of statistical systems in a country. It is also part of the World Bank Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and Poverty Reduction Strategic Papers (PRSPs).

The primary objective of the GDDS is to encourage member countries to build a framework to improve data quality and statistical capacity building to evaluate statistical needs, set priorities in improving timeliness, transparency, reliability, and accessibility of financial and economic data. Some countries initially used the GDDS, but later upgraded to SDDS.

Some entities that are not themselves IMF members also contribute statistical data to the systems:

A 2021 study found that the IMF's surveillance activities have "a substantial impact on sovereign debt with much greater impacts in emerging than high-income economies."[33]

Conditionality of loans

IMF conditionality is a set of policies or conditions that the IMF requires in exchange for financial resources.[22] The IMF does require collateral from countries for loans but also requires the government seeking assistance to correct its macroeconomic imbalances in the form of policy reform.[34] If the conditions are not met, the funds are withheld.[22][35] The concept of conditionality was introduced in a 1952 executive board decision and later incorporated into the Articles of Agreement.

Conditionality is associated with economic theory as well as an enforcement mechanism for repayment. Stemming primarily from the work of Jacques Polak, the theoretical underpinning of conditionality was the "monetary approach to the balance of payments".[23]

Structural adjustment

Some of the conditions for structural adjustment can include:

These conditions are known as the Washington Consensus.

Benefits

These loan conditions ensure that the borrowing country will be able to repay the IMF and that the country will not attempt to solve their balance-of-payment problems in a way that would negatively impact the international economy.[36][37] The incentive problem of moral hazard—when economic agents maximise their own utility to the detriment of others because they do not bear the full consequences of their actions—is mitigated through conditions rather than providing collateral; countries in need of IMF loans do not generally possess internationally valuable collateral anyway.[37]

Conditionality also reassures the IMF that the funds lent to them will be used for the purposes defined by the Articles of Agreement and provides safeguards that country will be able to rectify its macroeconomic and structural imbalances.[37] In the judgment of the IMF, the adoption by the member of certain corrective measures or policies will allow it to repay the IMF, thereby ensuring that the resources will be available to support other members.[35]

As of 2004, borrowing countries have had a good track record for repaying credit extended under the IMF's regular lending facilities with full interest over the duration of the loan. This indicates that IMF lending does not impose a burden on creditor countries, as lending countries receive market-rate interest on most of their quota subscription, plus any of their own-currency subscriptions that are loaned out by the IMF, plus all of the reserve assets that they provide the IMF.[21]

History

20th century

 
Plaque Commemorating the Formation of the IMF in July 1944 at the Bretton Woods Conference
 
IMF "Headquarters 1" in Washington, D.C., designed by Moshe Safdie
 
The Gold Room within the Mount Washington Hotel where the Bretton Woods Conference attendees signed the agreements creating the IMF and World Bank
 
First page of the Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund, 1 March 1946. Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs archives

The IMF was originally laid out as a part of the Bretton Woods system exchange agreement in 1944.[38] During the Great Depression, countries sharply raised barriers to trade in an attempt to improve their failing economies. This led to the devaluation of national currencies and a decline in world trade.[39]

This breakdown in international monetary cooperation created a need for oversight. The representatives of 45 governments met at the Bretton Woods Conference in the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in the United States, to discuss a framework for postwar international economic cooperation and how to rebuild Europe.

There were two views on the role the IMF should assume as a global economic institution. American delegate Harry Dexter White foresaw an IMF that functioned more like a bank, making sure that borrowing states could repay their debts on time.[40] Most of White's plan was incorporated into the final acts adopted at Bretton Woods. British economist John Maynard Keynes, on the other hand, imagined that the IMF would be a cooperative fund upon which member states could draw to maintain economic activity and employment through periodic crises. This view suggested an IMF that helped governments and to act as the United States government had during the New Deal to the great recession of the 1930s.[40]

The IMF formally came into existence on 27 December 1945, when the first 29 countries ratified its Articles of Agreement.[41] By the end of 1946 the IMF had grown to 39 members.[42] On 1 March 1947, the IMF began its financial operations,[43] and on 8 May France became the first country to borrow from it.[42]

The IMF was one of the key organizations of the international economic system; its design allowed the system to balance the rebuilding of international capitalism with the maximization of national economic sovereignty and human welfare, also known as embedded liberalism.[23] The IMF's influence in the global economy steadily increased as it accumulated more members. The increase reflected, in particular, the attainment of political independence by many African countries and more recently the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union because most countries in the Soviet sphere of influence did not join the IMF.[39]

The Bretton Woods exchange rate system prevailed until 1971 when the United States government suspended the convertibility of the US$ (and dollar reserves held by other governments) into gold. This is known as the Nixon Shock.[39] The changes to the IMF articles of agreement reflecting these changes were ratified in 1976 by the Jamaica Accords. Later in the 1970s, large commercial banks began lending to states because they were awash in cash deposited by oil exporters. The lending of the so-called money center banks led to the IMF changing its role in the 1980s after a world recession provoked a crisis that brought the IMF back into global financial governance.[44]

21st century

The IMF provided two major lending packages in the early 2000s to Argentina (during the 1998–2002 Argentine great depression) and Uruguay (after the 2002 Uruguay banking crisis).[45] However, by the mid-2000s, IMF lending was at its lowest share of world GDP since the 1970s.[46]

In May 2010, the IMF participated, in 3:11 proportion, in the first Greek bailout that totaled €110 billion, to address the great accumulation of public debt, caused by continuing large public sector deficits. As part of the bailout, the Greek government agreed to adopt austerity measures that would reduce the deficit from 11% in 2009 to "well below 3%" in 2014.[47] The bailout did not include debt restructuring measures such as a haircut, to the chagrin of the Swiss, Brazilian, Indian, Russian, and Argentinian Directors of the IMF, with the Greek authorities themselves (at the time, PM George Papandreou and Finance Minister Giorgos Papakonstantinou) ruling out a haircut.[48]

A second bailout package of more than €100 billion was agreed over the course of a few months from October 2011, during which time Papandreou was forced from office. The so-called Troika, of which the IMF is part, are joint managers of this programme, which was approved by the executive directors of the IMF on 15 March 2012 for XDR 23.8 billion[49] and saw private bondholders take a haircut of upwards of 50%. In the interval between May 2010 and February 2012 the private banks of Holland, France and Germany reduced exposure to Greek debt from €122 billion to €66 billion.[48][50]

As of January 2012, the largest borrowers from the IMF in order were Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Romania, and Ukraine.[51]

On 25 March 2013, a €10 billion international bailout of Cyprus was agreed by the Troika, at the cost to the Cypriots of its agreement: to close the country's second-largest bank; to impose a one-time bank deposit levy on Bank of Cyprus uninsured deposits.[52][53] No insured deposit of €100k or less were to be affected under the terms of a novel bail-in scheme.[54][55]

The topic of sovereign debt restructuring was taken up by the IMF in April 2013, for the first time since 2005, in a report entitled "Sovereign Debt Restructuring: Recent Developments and Implications for the Fund's Legal and Policy Framework".[56] The paper, which was discussed by the board on 20 May,[57] summarised the recent experiences in Greece, St Kitts and Nevis, Belize, and Jamaica. An explanatory interview with Deputy Director Hugh Bredenkamp was published a few days later,[58] as was a deconstruction by Matina Stevis of The Wall Street Journal.[59]

In the October 2013, Fiscal Monitor publication, the IMF suggested that a capital levy capable of reducing Euro-area government debt ratios to "end-2007 levels" would require a very high tax rate of about 10%.[60]

The Fiscal Affairs department of the IMF, headed at the time by Acting Director Sanjeev Gupta, produced a January 2014 report entitled "Fiscal Policy and Income Inequality" that stated that "Some taxes levied on wealth, especially on immovable property, are also an option for economies seeking more progressive taxation ... Property taxes are equitable and efficient, but underutilized in many economies ... There is considerable scope to exploit this tax more fully, both as a revenue source and as a redistributive instrument."[61]

At the end of March 2014, the IMF secured an $18 billion bailout fund for the provisional government of Ukraine in the aftermath of the Revolution of Dignity.[62][63]

Response and analysis of coronavirus

In late 2019, the IMF estimated global growth in 2020 to reach 3.4%, but due to the coronavirus, in November 2020, it expected the global economy to shrink by 4.4%.[64][65]

In March 2020, Kristalina Georgieva announced that the IMF stood ready to mobilize $1 trillion as its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.[66] This was in addition to the $50 billion fund it had announced two weeks earlier,[67] of which $5 billion had already been requested by Iran.[68] One day earlier on 11 March, the UK called to pledge £150 million to the IMF catastrophe relief fund.[69] It came to light on 27 March that "more than 80 poor and middle-income countries" had sought a bailout due to the coronavirus.[70]

On 13 April 2020, the IMF said that it "would provide immediate debt relief to 25 member countries under its Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust (CCRT)" programme.[71]

In November 2020, the Fund warned the economic recovery may be losing momentum as COVID-19 infections rise again and that more economic help would be needed.[65]

Member countries

 
  IMF member states
  IMF member states not accepting the obligations of Article VIII, Sections 2, 3, and 4[72]

Not all member countries of the IMF are sovereign states, and therefore not all "member countries" of the IMF are members of the United Nations.[73] Amidst "member countries" of the IMF that are not member states of the UN are non-sovereign areas with special jurisdictions that are officially under the sovereignty of full UN member states, such as Aruba, Curaçao, Hong Kong, and Macao, as well as Kosovo.[74][75] The corporate members appoint ex-officio voting members, who are listed below. All members of the IMF are also International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) members and vice versa.[76]

Former members are Cuba (which left in 1964),[77] and Taiwan, which was ejected from the IMF[78] in 1980 after losing the support of then United States President Jimmy Carter and was replaced by the People's Republic of China.[79] However, "Taiwan Province of China" is still listed in the official IMF indices.[80]

Apart from Cuba, the other UN states that do not belong to the IMF are Liechtenstein, Monaco and North Korea. However, Andorra became the 190th member on 16 October 2020.[81][82]

The former Czechoslovakia was expelled in 1954 for "failing to provide required data" and was readmitted in 1990, after the Velvet Revolution. Poland withdrew in 1950—allegedly pressured by the Soviet Union—but returned in 1986.[83]

Qualifications

Any country may apply to be a part of the IMF. Post-IMF formation, in the early postwar period, rules for IMF membership were left relatively loose. Members needed to make periodic membership payments towards their quota, to refrain from currency restrictions unless granted IMF permission, to abide by the Code of Conduct in the IMF Articles of Agreement, and to provide national economic information. However, stricter rules were imposed on governments that applied to the IMF for funding.[23]

The countries that joined the IMF between 1945 and 1971 agreed to keep their exchange rates secured at rates that could be adjusted only to correct a "fundamental disequilibrium" in the balance of payments, and only with the IMF's agreement.[84]

Benefits

Member countries of the IMF have access to information on the economic policies of all member countries, the opportunity to influence other members' economic policies, technical assistance in banking, fiscal affairs, and exchange matters, financial support in times of payment difficulties, and increased opportunities for trade and investment.[85]

Leadership

Board of Governors

The Board of Governors consists of one governor and one alternate governor for each member country. Each member country appoints its two governors. The Board normally meets once a year and is responsible for electing or appointing an executive director to the executive board. While the Board of Governors is officially responsible for approving quota increases, special drawing right allocations, the admittance of new members, compulsory withdrawal of members, and amendments to the Articles of Agreement and By-Laws, in practice it has delegated most of its powers to the IMF's executive board.[86]

The Board of Governors is advised by the International Monetary and Financial Committee and the Development Committee. The International Monetary and Financial Committee has 24 members and monitors developments in global liquidity and the transfer of resources to developing countries.[87] The Development Committee has 25 members and advises on critical development issues and on financial resources required to promote economic development in developing countries. They also advise on trade and environmental issues.

The Board of Governors reports directly to the managing director of the IMF, Kristalina Georgieva.[87]

Executive Board

24 Executive Directors make up the executive board. The executive directors represent all 189 member countries in a geographically based roster.[88] Countries with large economies have their own executive director, but most countries are grouped in constituencies representing four or more countries.[86]

Following the 2008 Amendment on Voice and Participation which came into effect in March 2011,[89] seven countries each appoint an executive director: the United States, Japan, China, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Saudi Arabia.[88] The remaining 17 Directors represent constituencies consisting of 2 to 23 countries. This Board usually meets several times each week.[90] The Board membership and constituency is scheduled for periodic review every eight years.[91]

List of Executive Directors of the IMF, as of February 2019
Country Region Number of Member(s) Represented Director Country with Most Votes
United States United States 1 Mark Rosen United States
Japan Japan 1 Masaaki Kaizuka Japan
China China 1 Jin Zhongxia China
Belgium Benelux, Israel, and Eastern Europe 15 Anthony De Lannoy Netherlands
Germany Germany 1 Steffen Meyer Germany
Colombia Spain and Central America 8 Leonardo Villar Spain
Indonesia Southeast Asia 13 Juda Agung Indonesia
Italy Mediterranean Europe 6 Domenico G. Fanizza Italy
France France 1 Herve de Villeroche France
United Kingdom United Kingdom 1 Shona E. Riach United Kingdom
Australia Far East 15 Nigel Ray South Korea
Canada North Atlantic and the Caribbean 12 Louise Levonian Canada
Sweden Northern Europe 8 Thomas Östros Sweden
Turkey Central Europe 8 Raci Kaya Turkey
Brazil Northern South America 11 Alexandre Tombini Brazil
India Indian subcontinent 4 Surjit Bhalla India
South Africa Africa 1 23 Dumisani Mahlinza South Africa
Switzerland Switzerland, Poland, and the Near East 9 Paul Inderbinen Switzerland
Russia Russia 2 Aleksei V. Mozhin Russia
Iran Iran and the Middle East 8 Jafar Mojarrad Iran
Egypt North Africa and the Middle East 11 Hazem Beblawi United Arab Emirates
Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia 1 Maher Mouminah Saudi Arabia
Mauritania Africa 2 23 Mohamed-Lemine Raghani Democratic Republic of the Congo
Argentina Southern South America 6 Gabriel Lopetegui Argentina

Managing Director

The IMF is led by a managing director, who is head of the staff and serves as Chairman of the executive board. The managing director is the most powerful position at the IMF.[92] Historically, the IMF's managing director has been a European citizen and the president of the World Bank has been an American citizen. However, this standard is increasingly being questioned and competition for these two posts may soon open up to include other qualified candidates from any part of the world.[93][94] In August 2019, the International Monetary Fund has removed the age limit which is 65 or over for its managing director position.[95]

In 2011, the world's largest developing countries, the BRIC states, issued a statement declaring that the tradition of appointing a European as managing director undermined the legitimacy of the IMF and called for the appointment to be merit-based.[93][96]

List of Managing Directors

Term Dates Name Citizenship Background
1 6 May 1946 – 5 May 1951 Camille Gutt   Belgium Politician, Economist, Lawyer, Economics Minister, Finance Minister
2 3 August 1951 – 3 October 1956 Ivar Rooth   Sweden Economist, Lawyer, Central Banker
3 21 November 1956 – 5 May 1963 Per Jacobsson   Sweden Economist, Lawyer, Academic, League of Nations, BIS
4 1 September 1963 – 31 August 1973 Pierre-Paul Schweitzer   France Lawyer, Businessman, Civil Servant, Central Banker
5 1 September 1973 – 18 June 1978 Johan Witteveen   Netherlands Politician, Economist, Academic, Finance Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, CPB
6 18 June 1978 – 15 January 1987 Jacques de Larosière   France Businessman, Civil Servant, Central Banker
7 16 January 1987 – 14 February 2000 Michel Camdessus   France Economist, Civil Servant, Central Banker
8 1 May 2000 – 4 March 2004 Horst Köhler   Germany Politician, Economist, Civil Servant, EBRD, President
9 7 June 2004 – 31 October 2007 Rodrigo Rato   Spain Politician, Businessman, Economics Minister, Finance Minister, Deputy Prime Minister
10 1 November 2007 – 18 May 2011 Dominique Strauss-Kahn   France Politician, Economist, Lawyer, Businessman, Economics Minister, Finance Minister
11 5 July 2011 – 12 September 2019 Christine Lagarde   France Politician, Lawyer, Finance Minister
12 1 October 2019 – present Kristalina Georgieva   Bulgaria Politician, Economist
 
On 28 June 2011, Christine Lagarde was named managing director of the IMF, replacing Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Former managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested in connection with charges of sexually assaulting a New York hotel room attendant and resigned on 18 May. The charges were later dropped.[97] On 28 June 2011 Christine Lagarde was confirmed as managing director of the IMF for a five-year term starting on 5 July 2011.[98][99] She was re-elected by consensus for a second five-year term, starting 5 July 2016, being the only candidate nominated for the post of managing director.[100]

First Deputy Managing Director

The managing director is assisted by a First Deputy managing director (FDMD) who, by convention, has always been a citizen of the United States.[101] Together, the managing director and their First Deputy lead the senior management of the IMF. Like the managing director, the First Deputy traditionally serves a five-year term.

List of First Deputy Managing Directors

No. Dates Name Citizenship Background
1 9 February 1949 – 24 January 1952 Andrew Overby   United States Banker, Senior U.S. Treasury Official
2 16 March 1953 – 31 October 1962 Merle Cochran   United States U.S. Foreign Service Officer
3 1 November 1962 – 28 February 1974 Frank Southard   United States Economist, Civil Servant
4 1 March 1974 – 31 May 1984 William Dale   United States Civil Servant
5 1 June 1984 – 31 August 1994 Richard Erb   United States Economist, White House Official
6 1 September 1994 – 31 August 2001 Stanley Fischer   Israel
  United States
Economist, Central Banker, Banker
7 1 September 2001 – 31 August 2006 Anne Kreuger   United States Economist
8 17 July 2006 – 11 November 2011 John Lipsky   United States Economist
9 1 September 2011 – 28 February 2020 David Lipton   United States Economist, Senior U.S. Treasury Official
10 20 March 2020 – 20 January 2022 Geoffrey Okamoto   United States Senior U.S. Treasury Official, Bank Consultant
11 21 January 2022 – present Gita Gopinath   United States Professor at Harvard University's Economics department
Chief Economist of IMF

Chief Economist

The chief economist leads the research division of the IMF and is a "senior official" of the IMF.[102]

List of Chief Economists

Term Dates Name Citizenship
1 1946–1958 Edward Bernstein[103]   United States
2 1958–1980 Jacques Polak   Netherlands
3 1980–1987 William Hood[104][105]   Canada
4 1987–1991 Jacob Frenkel[106]   Israel
5 August 1991 – 29 June 2001 Michael Mussa[107]   United States
6 August 2001 – September 2003 Kenneth Rogoff[108]   United States
7 September 2003 – January 2007 Raghuram Rajan[109]   India
8 March 2007 – 31 August 2008 Simon Johnson[110]   United Kingdom
  United States
9 1 September 2008 – 8 September 2015 Olivier Blanchard[111]   France
10 8 September 2015 – 31 December 2018 Maurice Obstfeld[112]   United States
11 1 January 2019 – 21 January 2022 Gita Gopinath[113]   United States
12 24 January 2022 – present Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas[114]   France

Voting power

Voting power in the IMF is based on a quota system. Each member has a number of basic votes, equal to 5.502% of the total votes,[115] plus one additional vote for each special drawing right (SDR) of 100,000 of a member country's quota.[116] The SDR is the unit of account of the IMF and represents a potential claim to currency. It is based on a basket of key international currencies. The basic votes generate a slight bias in favour of small countries, but the additional votes determined by SDR outweigh this bias.[116] Changes in the voting shares require approval by a super-majority of 85% of voting power.[11]

Quota and voting shares for the largest IMF members[2]
Rank IMF Member country Quota Governor Alternate No. of votes % of total
votes
millions of
XDR
% of the
total
1   United States 82,994.2 17.43 Andy Baukol Vacant 831,401 16.50
2   Japan 30,820.5 6.47 Shunichi Suzuki Haruhiko Kuroda 309,664 6.14
3   China 30,482.9 6.40 Gang Yi Yulu Chen 306,288 6.08
4   Germany 26,634.4 5.59 Joachim Nagel Christian Lindner 267,803 5.31
5   France 20,155.1 4.23 Bruno Le Maire François Villeroy de Galhau 203,010 4.03
6   United Kingdom 20,155.1 4.23 Jeremy Hunt MP Andrew Bailey 203,010 4.03
7   Italy 15,070.0 3.16 Daniele Franco Ignazio Visco 152,159 3.02
8   India 13,114.4 2.75 Nirmala Sitharaman Shaktikanta Das 132,603 2.63
9   Russia 12,903.7 2.71 Anton Siluanov Elvira S. Nabiullina 130,496 2.59
10   Brazil 11,042.0 2.32 Paulo Guedes Roberto Campos Neto 111,879 2.22
11   Canada 11,023.9 2.31 Chrystia Freeland Tiff Macklem 111,698 2.22
12   Saudi Arabia 9,992.6 2.10 Mohammed Al-Jadaan Fahad A. Almubarak 101,385 2.01
13   Spain 9,535.5 2.00 Nadia Calviño Pablo Hernández de Cos 96,814 1.92
14   Mexico 8,912.7 1.87 Rogelio Eduardo Ramirez de la O Victoria Rodríguez Ceja 90,586 1.80
15   Netherlands 8,736.5 1.83 Klaas Knot Christiaan Rebergen 88,824 1.76
16   South Korea 8,582.7 1.80 Choo Kyung-ho Rhee Chang-yong 87,286 1.73
17   Australia 6,572.4 1.38 Jim Chalmers, M.P.
Steven Kennedy 67,183 1.33
18   Belgium 6,410.7 1.35 Pierre Wunsch Vincent Van Peteghem 65,566 1.30
19   Switzerland 5,771.1 1.21 Thomas Jordan Ueli Maurer 59,170 1.17
20   Turkey 4,658.6 0.98 Nureddin Nebati Şahap Kavcıoğlu 48,045 0.95
21   Indonesia 4,648.4 0.98 Perry Warjiyo Sri Mulyani Indrawati 47,943 0.95
22   Sweden 4,430.0 0.93 Stefan Ingves Elin Eliasson 45,759 0.91
23   Poland 4,095.4 0.86 Mateusz Morawiecki Marta Kightley 42,413 0.84
24   Austria 3,932.0 0.83 Robert Holzmann Gottfried Haber 40,779 0.81
25   Singapore 3,891.9 0.82 Tharman Shanmugaratnam Ravi Menon 40,378 0.80

In December 2015, the United States Congress adopted a legislation authorising the 2010 Quota and Governance Reforms. As a result,

  • all 190 members' quotas will increase from a total of about XDR 238.5 billion to about XDR 477 billion, while the quota shares and voting power of the IMF's poorest member countries will be protected.
  • more than 6 percent of quota shares will shift to dynamic emerging market and developing countries and also from over-represented to under-represented members.
  • four emerging market countries (Brazil, China, India, and Russia) will be among the ten largest members of the IMF. Other top 10 members are the United States, Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Italy.[117]

Effects of the quota system

The IMF's quota system was created to raise funds for loans.[23] Each IMF member country is assigned a quota, or contribution, that reflects the country's relative size in the global economy. Each member's quota also determines its relative voting power. Thus, financial contributions from member governments are linked to voting power in the organization.[116]

This system follows the logic of a shareholder-controlled organization: wealthy countries have more say in the making and revision of rules.[23] Since decision making at the IMF reflects each member's relative economic position in the world, wealthier countries that provide more money to the IMF have more influence than poorer members that contribute less; nonetheless, the IMF focuses on redistribution.[116]

Inflexibility of voting power

Quotas are normally reviewed every five years and can be increased when deemed necessary by the Board of Governors. IMF voting shares are relatively inflexible: countries that grow economically have tended to become under-represented as their voting power lags behind.[11] Currently, reforming the representation of developing countries within the IMF has been suggested.[116] These countries' economies represent a large portion of the global economic system but this is not reflected in the IMF's decision-making process through the nature of the quota system. Joseph Stiglitz argues, "There is a need to provide more effective voice and representation for developing countries, which now represent a much larger portion of world economic activity since 1944, when the IMF was created."[118] In 2008, a number of quota reforms were passed including shifting 6% of quota shares to dynamic emerging markets and developing countries.[119]

Overcoming borrower/creditor divide

The IMF's membership is divided along income lines: certain countries provide financial resources while others use these resources. Both developed country "creditors" and developing country "borrowers" are members of the IMF. The developed countries provide the financial resources but rarely enter into IMF loan agreements; they are the creditors. Conversely, the developing countries use the lending services but contribute little to the pool of money available to lend because their quotas are smaller; they are the borrowers. Thus, tension is created around governance issues because these two groups, creditors and borrowers, have fundamentally different interests.[116]

The criticism is that the system of voting power distribution through a quota system institutionalizes borrower subordination and creditor dominance. The resulting division of the IMF's membership into borrowers and non-borrowers has increased the controversy around conditionality because the borrowers are interested in increasing loan access while creditors want to maintain reassurance that the loans will be repaid.[120]

Use

A recent[when?] source revealed that the average overall use of IMF credit per decade increased, in real terms, by 21% between the 1970s and 1980s, and increased again by just over 22% from the 1980s to the 1991–2005 period. Another study has suggested that since 1950 the continent of Africa alone has received $300 billion from the IMF, the World Bank, and affiliate institutions.[121]

A study by Bumba Mukherjee found that developing democratic countries benefit more from IMF programs than developing autocratic countries because policy-making, and the process of deciding where loaned money is used, is more transparent within a democracy.[121] One study done by Randall Stone found that although earlier studies found little impact of IMF programs on balance of payments, more recent studies using more sophisticated methods and larger samples "usually found IMF programs improved the balance of payments".[38]

Exceptional Access Framework – sovereign debt

The Exceptional Access Framework was created in 2003 when John B. Taylor was Under Secretary of the US Treasury for International Affairs. The new Framework became fully operational in February 2003 and it was applied in the subsequent decisions on Argentina and Brazil.[122] Its purpose was to place some sensible rules and limits on the way the IMF makes loans to support governments with debt problem—especially in emerging markets—and thereby move away from the bailout mentality of the 1990s. Such a reform was essential for ending the crisis atmosphere that then existed in emerging markets. The reform was closely related to and put in place nearly simultaneously with the actions of several emerging market countries to place collective action clauses in their bond contracts.

In 2010, the framework was abandoned so the IMF could make loans to Greece in an unsustainable and political situation.[123][124]

The topic of sovereign debt restructuring was taken up by IMF staff in April 2013 for the first time since 2005, in a report entitled "Sovereign Debt Restructuring: Recent Developments and Implications for the Fund's Legal and Policy Framework".[56] The paper, which was discussed by the board on 20 May,[57] summarised the recent experiences in Greece, St Kitts and Nevis, Belize, and Jamaica. An explanatory interview with Deputy Director Hugh Bredenkamp was published a few days later,[58] as was a deconstruction by Matina Stevis of The Wall Street Journal.[59]

The staff was directed to formulate an updated policy, which was accomplished on 22 May 2014 with a report entitled "The Fund's Lending Framework and Sovereign Debt: Preliminary Considerations", and taken up by the executive board on 13 June.[125] The staff proposed that "in circumstances where a (Sovereign) member has lost market access and debt is considered sustainable ... the IMF would be able to provide Exceptional Access on the basis of a debt operation that involves an extension of maturities", which was labeled a "reprofiling operation". These reprofiling operations would "generally be less costly to the debtor and creditors—and thus to the system overall—relative to either an upfront debt reduction operation or a bail-out that is followed by debt reduction ... (and) would be envisaged only when both (a) a member has lost market access and (b) debt is assessed to be sustainable, but not with high probability ... Creditors will only agree if they understand that such an amendment is necessary to avoid a worse outcome: namely, a default and/or an operation involving debt reduction ... Collective action clauses, which now exist in most—but not all—bonds would be relied upon to address collective action problems."[125]

Impact

According to a 2002 study by Randall W. Stone, the academic literature on the IMF shows "no consensus on the long-term effects of IMF programs on growth".[126]

Some research has found that IMF loans can reduce the chance of a future banking crisis,[127] while other studies have found that they can increase the risk of political crises.[128] IMF programs can reduce the effects of a currency crisis.[129]

Some research has found that IMF programs are less effective in countries which possess a developed-country patron (be it by foreign aid, membership of postcolonial institutions or UN voting patterns), seemingly due to this patron allowing countries to flaunt IMF program rules as these rules are not consistently enforced.[130] Some research has found that IMF loans reduce economic growth due to creating an economic moral hazard, reducing public investment, reducing incentives to create a robust domestic policies and reducing private investor confidence.[131] Other research has indicated that IMF loans can have a positive impact on economic growth and that their effects are highly nuanced.[132]

Criticisms

 
Anarchist protest against the IMF and corporate bailout

Overseas Development Institute (ODI) research undertaken in 1980 included criticisms of the IMF which support the analysis that it is a pillar of what activist Titus Alexander calls global apartheid.[133]

  • Developed countries were seen to have a more dominant role and control over less developed countries (LDCs).
  • The Fund worked on the incorrect assumption that all payments disequilibria were caused domestically. The Group of 24 (G-24), on behalf of LDC members, and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) complained that the IMF did not distinguish sufficiently between disequilibria with predominantly external as opposed to internal causes. This criticism was voiced in the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis. Then LDCs found themselves with payment deficits due to adverse changes in their terms of trade, with the Fund prescribing stabilization programmes similar to those suggested for deficits caused by government over-spending. Faced with long-term, externally generated disequilibria, the G-24 argued for more time for LDCs to adjust their economies.
  • Some IMF policies may be anti-developmental; the report said that deflationary effects of IMF programmes quickly led to losses of output and employment in economies where incomes were low and unemployment was high. Moreover, the burden of the deflation is disproportionately borne by the poor.
  • The IMF's initial policies were based in theory and influenced by differing opinions and departmental rivalries. Critics suggest that its intentions to implement these policies in countries with widely varying economic circumstances were misinformed and lacked economic rationale.

ODI conclusions were that the IMF's very nature of promoting market-oriented approaches attracted unavoidable criticism. On the other hand, the IMF could serve as a scapegoat while allowing governments to blame international bankers. The ODI conceded that the IMF was insensitive to political aspirations of LDCs while its policy conditions were inflexible.[134]

Argentina, which had been considered by the IMF to be a model country in its compliance to policy proposals by the Bretton Woods institutions, experienced a catastrophic economic crisis in 2001,[135] which some believe to have been caused by IMF-induced budget restrictions—which undercut the government's ability to sustain national infrastructure even in crucial areas such as health, education, and security—and privatisation of strategically vital national resources.[136] Others attribute the crisis to Argentina's misdesigned fiscal federalism, which caused subnational spending to increase rapidly.[137] The crisis added to widespread hatred of this institution in Argentina and other South American countries, with many blaming the IMF for the region's economic problems. The current—as of early 2006—trend toward moderate left-wing governments in the region and a growing concern with the development of a regional economic policy largely independent of big business pressures has been ascribed to this crisis.[citation needed]

In 2006, a senior ActionAid policy analyst Akanksha Marphatia stated that IMF policies in Africa undermine any possibility of meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) due to imposed restrictions that prevent spending on important sectors, such as education and health.[138]

In an interview (2008-05-19), the former Romanian Prime Minister Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu claimed that "Since 2005, IMF is constantly making mistakes when it appreciates the country's economic performances".[139] Former Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere, who claimed that debt-ridden African states were ceding sovereignty to the IMF and the World Bank, famously asked, "Who elected the IMF to be the ministry of finance for every country in the world?"[140][141]

Former chief economist of IMF and former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan who predicted the financial crisis of 2007–08 criticised the IMF for remaining a sideline player to the developed world. He criticised the IMF for praising the monetary policies of the US, which he believed were wreaking havoc in emerging markets.[142] He had been critical of "ultra-loose money policies" of some unnamed countries.[143][144]

Countries such as Zambia have not received proper aid with long-lasting effects, leading to concern from economists. Since 2005, Zambia (as well as 29 other African countries) did receive debt write-offs, which helped with the country's medical and education funds. However, Zambia returned to a debt of over half its GDP in less than a decade. American economist William Easterly, sceptical of the IMF's methods, had initially warned that "debt relief would simply encourage more reckless borrowing by crooked governments unless it was accompanied by reforms to speed up economic growth and improve governance", according to The Economist.[145]

Conditionality

The IMF has been criticised for being "out of touch" with local economic conditions, cultures, and environments in the countries they are requiring policy reform.[22] The economic advice the IMF gives might not always take into consideration the difference between what spending means on paper and how it is felt by citizens.[146] Countries charge that with excessive conditionality, they do not "own" the programmes and the links are broken between a recipient country's people, its government, and the goals being pursued by the IMF.[147]

Jeffrey Sachs argues that the IMF's "usual prescription is 'budgetary belt tightening to countries who are much too poor to own belts'".[146] Sachs wrote that the IMF's role as a generalist institution specialising in macroeconomic issues needs reform. Conditionality has also been criticised because a country can pledge collateral of "acceptable assets" to obtain waivers—if one assumes that all countries are able to provide "acceptable collateral".[37]

One view is that conditionality undermines domestic political institutions.[148] The recipient governments are sacrificing policy autonomy in exchange for funds, which can lead to public resentment of the local leadership for accepting and enforcing the IMF conditions. Political instability can result from more leadership turnover as political leaders are replaced in electoral backlashes.[22] IMF conditions are often criticised for reducing government services, thus increasing unemployment.[23]

Another criticism is that IMF policies are only designed to address poor governance, excessive government spending, excessive government intervention in markets, and too much state ownership.[146] This assumes that this narrow range of issues represents the only possible problems; everything is standardised and differing contexts are ignored.[146] A country may also be compelled to accept conditions it would not normally accept had they not been in a financial crisis in need of assistance.[35]

On top of that, regardless of what methodologies and data sets used, it comes to same the conclusion of exacerbating income inequality. With Gini coefficient, it became clear that countries with IMF policies face increased income inequality.[149]

It is claimed that conditionalities retard social stability and hence inhibit the stated goals of the IMF, while Structural Adjustment Programmes lead to an increase in poverty in recipient countries.[150] The IMF sometimes advocates "austerity programmes", cutting public spending and increasing taxes even when the economy is weak, to bring budgets closer to a balance, thus reducing budget deficits. Countries are often advised to lower their corporate tax rate. In Globalization and Its Discontents, Joseph E. Stiglitz, former chief economist and senior vice-president at the World Bank, criticises these policies.[151] He argues that by converting to a more monetarist approach, the purpose of the fund is no longer valid, as it was designed to provide funds for countries to carry out Keynesian reflations, and that the IMF "was not participating in a conspiracy, but it was reflecting the interests and ideology of the Western financial community."[152]

Stiglitz concludes, "Modern high-tech warfare is designed to remove physical contact: dropping bombs from 50,000 feet ensures that one does not 'feel' what one does. Modern economic management is similar: from one's luxury hotel, one can callously impose policies about which one would think twice if one knew the people whose lives one was destroying."[151]

The researchers Eric Toussaint and Damien Millet argue that the IMF's policies amount to a new form of colonisation that does not need a military presence:

Following the exigencies of the governments of the richest companies, the IMF, permitted countries in crisis to borrow in order to avoid default on their repayments. Caught in the debt's downward spiral, developing countries soon had no other recourse than to take on new debt in order to repay the old debt. Before providing them with new loans, at higher interest rates, future leaders asked the IMF, to intervene with the guarantee of ulterior reimbursement, asking for a signed agreement with the said countries. The IMF thus agreed to restart the flow of the 'finance pump' on condition that the concerned countries first use this money to reimburse banks and other private lenders, while restructuring their economy at the IMF's discretion: these were the famous conditionalities, detailed in the Structural Adjustment Programmes. The IMF and its ultra-liberal experts took control of the borrowing countries' economic policies. A new form of colonisation was thus instituted. It was not even necessary to establish an administrative or military presence; the debt alone maintained this new form of submission.[153]

International politics play an important role in IMF decision making. The clout of member states is roughly proportional to its contribution to IMF finances. The United States has the greatest number of votes and therefore wields the most influence. Domestic politics often come into play, with politicians in developing countries using conditionality to gain leverage over the opposition to influence policy.[154][155]

Reform

Function and policies

The IMF is only one of many international organisations, and it is a generalist institution that deals only with macroeconomic issues; its core areas of concern in developing countries are very narrow. One proposed reform is a movement towards close partnership with other specialist agencies such as UNICEF, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).[146]

Jeffrey Sachs argues in The End of Poverty that the IMF and the World Bank have "the brightest economists and the lead in advising poor countries on how to break out of poverty, but the problem is development economics".[146] Development economics needs the reform, not the IMF. He also notes that IMF loan conditions should be paired with other reforms—e.g., trade reform in developed nations, debt cancellation, and increased financial assistance for investments in basic infrastructure.[146] IMF loan conditions cannot stand alone and produce change; they need to be partnered with other reforms or other conditions as applicable.[11]

US influence and voting reform

The scholarly consensus is that IMF decision-making is not simply technocratic, but also guided by political and economic concerns.[156] The United States is the IMF's most powerful member, and its influence reaches even into decision-making concerning individual loan agreements.[157] The United States has historically been openly opposed to losing what Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew described in 2015 as its "leadership role" at the IMF, and the United States' "ability to shape international norms and practices".[158]

Emerging markets were not well-represented for most of the IMF's history: Despite being the most populous country, China's vote share was the sixth largest; Brazil's vote share was smaller than Belgium's.[159] Reforms to give more powers to emerging economies were agreed by the G20 in 2010. The reforms could not pass, however, until they were ratified by the US Congress,[160][161][162] since 85% of the Fund's voting power was required for the reforms to take effect,[163] and the Americans held more than 16% of voting power at the time.[2] After repeated criticism,[164][165] the United States finally ratified the voting reforms at the end of 2015.[166] The OECD countries maintained their overwhelming majority of voting share, and the United States in particular retained its share at over 16%.[167]

The criticism of the American-and-European dominated IMF has led to what some consider 'disenfranchising the world' from the governance of the IMF. Raúl Prebisch, the founding secretary-general of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), wrote that one of "the conspicuous deficiencies of the general economic theory, from the point of view of the periphery, is its false sense of universality."[168]

Support of dictatorships

The role of the Bretton Woods institutions has been controversial since the late Cold War, because of claims that the IMF policy makers supported military dictatorships friendly to American and European corporations, but also other anti-communist and Communist regimes (such as Mobutu's Zaire and Ceaușescu's Romania, respectively). Critics also claim that the IMF is generally apathetic or hostile to human rights, and labour rights. The controversy has helped spark the anti-globalization movement.

An example of IMF's support for a dictatorship was its ongoing support for Mobutu's rule in Zaire, although its own envoy, Erwin Blumenthal, provided a sobering report about the entrenched corruption and embezzlement and the inability of the country to pay back any loans.[169]

Arguments in favour of the IMF say that economic stability is a precursor to democracy; however, critics highlight various examples in which democratised countries fell after receiving IMF loans.[170]

A 2017 study found no evidence of IMF lending programs undermining democracy in borrowing countries.[171] To the contrary, it found "evidence for modest but definitively positive conditional differences in the democracy scores of participating and non-participating countries."[171]

On 28 June 2021 the IMF approved a US$1 billion loan to the Ugandan government despite protests from Ugandans who protested in Washington, London and South-Africa.[172][173]

Impact on access to food

A number of civil society organisations[174] have criticised the IMF's policies for their impact on access to food, particularly in developing countries. In October 2008, former United States president Bill Clinton delivered a speech to the United Nations on World Food Day, criticising the World Bank and IMF for their policies on food and agriculture:

We need the World Bank, the IMF, all the big foundations, and all the governments to admit that, for 30 years, we all blew it, including me when I was president. We were wrong to believe that food was like some other product in international trade, and we all have to go back to a more responsible and sustainable form of agriculture.

— Former U.S. president Bill Clinton, Speech at United Nations World Food Day, October 16, 2008[175]

The FPIF remarked that there is a recurring pattern: "the destabilization of peasant producers by a one-two punch of IMF-World Bank structural adjustment programs that gutted government investment in the countryside followed by the massive influx of subsidized U.S. and European Union agricultural imports after the WTO's Agreement on Agriculture pried open markets."[176]

Impact on public health

A 2009 study concluded that the strict conditions resulted in thousands of deaths in Eastern Europe by tuberculosis as public health care had to be weakened. In the 21 countries to which the IMF had given loans, tuberculosis deaths rose by 16.6%.[177] A 2017 systematic review on studies conducted on the impact that Structural adjustment programs have on child and maternal health found that these programs have a detrimental effect on maternal and child health among other adverse effects.[178]

In 2009, a book by Rick Rowden titled The Deadly Ideas of Neoliberalism: How the IMF has Undermined Public Health and the Fight Against AIDS, claimed that the IMF's monetarist approach towards prioritising price stability (low inflation) and fiscal restraint (low budget deficits) was unnecessarily restrictive and has prevented developing countries from scaling up long-term investment in public health infrastructure. The book claimed the consequences have been chronically underfunded public health systems, leading to demoralising working conditions that have fuelled a "brain drain" of medical personnel, all of which has undermined public health and the fight against HIV/AIDS in developing countries.[179]

In 2016, the IMF's research department published a report titled "Neoliberalism: Oversold?" which, while praising some aspects of the "neoliberal agenda", claims that the organisation has been "overselling" fiscal austerity policies and financial deregulation, which they claim has exacerbated both financial crises and economic inequality around the world.[180][181][182]

Impact on environment

IMF policies have been repeatedly criticised for making it difficult for indebted countries to say no to environmentally harmful projects that nevertheless generate revenues such as oil, coal, and forest-destroying lumber and agriculture projects. Ecuador, for example, had to defy IMF advice repeatedly to pursue the protection of its rainforests, though paradoxically this need was cited in the IMF argument to provide support to Ecuador. The IMF acknowledged this paradox in the 2010 report that proposed the IMF Green Fund, a mechanism to issue special drawing rights directly to pay for climate harm prevention and potentially other ecological protection as pursued generally by other environmental finance.[183]

While the response to these moves was generally positive[184] possibly because ecological protection and energy and infrastructure transformation are more politically neutral than pressures to change social policy, some experts[who?] voiced concern that the IMF was not representative, and that the IMF proposals to generate only US$200 billion a year by 2020 with the SDRs as seed funds, did not go far enough to undo the general incentive to pursue destructive projects inherent in the world commodity trading and banking systems—criticisms often levelled at the World Trade Organization and large global banking institutions.

In the context of the European debt crisis, some observers[who?] noted that[when?] Spain and California, two troubled economies[citation needed] within respectively the European Union and the United States, and also Germany, the primary and politically most fragile supporter of a euro currency bailout would benefit from IMF recognition of their leadership in green technology, and directly from Green Fund-generated demand for their exports, which could also improve their credit ratings.[citation needed]

IMF and globalization

Globalization encompasses three institutions: global financial markets and transnational companies, national governments linked to each other in economic and military alliances led by the United States, and rising "global governments" such as World Trade Organization (WTO), IMF, and World Bank.[185] Charles Derber argues in his book People Before Profit, "These interacting institutions create a new global power system where sovereignty is globalized, taking power and constitutional authority away from nations and giving it to global markets and international bodies".[185] Titus Alexander argues that this system institutionalises global inequality between western countries and the Majority World in a form of global apartheid, in which the IMF is a key pillar.[186]

The establishment of globalised economic institutions has been both a symptom of and a stimulus for globalisation. The development of the World Bank, the IMF, regional development banks such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and multilateral trade institutions such as the WTO signals a move away from the dominance of the state as the primary actor analysed in international affairs. Globalization has thus been transformative in terms of limiting of state sovereignty over the economy.[187]

Impact on gender equality

The IMF says they support women's empowerment and tries to promote their rights in countries with a significant gender gap.[188]

Scandals

Managing Director Lagarde (2011-2019) was convicted of giving preferential treatment to businessman-turned-politician Bernard Tapie as he pursued a legal challenge against the French government. At the time, Lagarde was the French economic minister.[189] Within hours of her conviction, in which she escaped any punishment, the fund's 24-member executive board put to rest any speculation that she might have to resign, praising her "outstanding leadership" and the "wide respect" she commands around the world.[190]

Former IMF Managing Director Rodrigo Rato was arrested in 2015 for alleged fraud, embezzlement and money laundering.[191][192] In 2017, the Audiencia Nacional found Rato guilty of embezzlement and sentenced him to 412 years' imprisonment.[193] In 2018, the sentence was confirmed by the Supreme Court of Spain.[194]

Alternatives

In March 2011, the Ministers of Economy and Finance of the African Union proposed to establish an African Monetary Fund.[195]

At the 6th BRICS summit in July 2014 the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) announced the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) with an initial size of US$100 billion, a framework to provide liquidity through currency swaps in response to actual or potential short-term balance-of-payments pressures.[196]

In 2014, the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank was established.[158]

In the media

Life and Debt, a documentary film, deals with the IMF's policies' influence on Jamaica and its economy from a critical point of view. Debtocracy, a 2011 independent Greek documentary film, also criticises the IMF. Portuguese musician José Mário Branco's 1982 album FMI is inspired by the IMF's intervention in Portugal through monitored stabilisation programs in 1977–78. In the 2015 film, Our Brand Is Crisis, the IMF is mentioned as a point of political contention, where the Bolivian population fears its electoral interference.[197]

See also

Notes

a. ^ There is no worldwide consensus on the status of the Republic of Kosovo: it is recognised as independent by 101 countries, while others consider it an autonomous province of Serbia. See: International recognition of Kosovo.

References

Footnotes

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Bibliography

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Further reading

  • Bordo, M.D. (1993). Bordo, M.D.; Eichengreen, Barry (eds.). The Bretton Woods International Monetary System: A Historical Overview. A Retrospective on the Bretton Woods System. London. doi:10.7208/chicago/9780226066905.001.0001. ISBN 9780226065878.
  • Copelovitch, Mark. 2010. The International Monetary Fund in the Global Economy: Banks, Bonds, and Bailouts. Cambridge University Press.
  • deVries, Margaret Garritsen. The IMF in a Changing World, 1945–85, International Monetary Fund, 1986.
  • James, H. International Monetary Cooperation since Bretton Woods, Oxford, 1996.
  • Joicey, N. and Pickford, S. "The International Monetary Fund and Global Economic Cooperation" in Nicholas Bayne and Stephen Woolcock, , (Ashgate Publishing, 2011).
  • Keynes, J.M. The Collected Writings, Vol. XXVI. Activities 1941–1946: Shaping the Post-War World: Bretton Woods and Reparations, Cambridge, 1980.
  • Moschella, M. (Palgrave Macmillan; 2010).
  • Skidelsky, R. John Maynard Keynes: Fighting for Britain, London, 2000.
  • Truman, E. , Policy Brief 10–29, Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2010.
  • Weiss, Martin A. The International Monetary Fund. 1 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 24 May 2018).
  • Woods, N. The Globalizers: The IMF, the World Bank, and Their Borrowers, Ithaca, 2006
  • Woods, Ngaire and Lombardi, Domenico. (2006). Uneven Patterns of Governance: How Developing Countries are Represented in the IMF. Review of International Political Economy. Volume 13, Number 3: 480–515.

External links

  • Official website

international, monetary, fund, redirects, here, other, uses, disambiguation, major, financial, agency, united, nations, international, financial, institution, headquartered, washington, consisting, countries, stated, mission, working, foster, global, monetary,. IMF redirects here For other uses see IMF disambiguation The International Monetary Fund IMF is a major financial agency of the United Nations and an international financial institution headquartered in Washington D C consisting of 190 countries Its stated mission is working to foster global monetary cooperation secure financial stability facilitate international trade promote high employment and sustainable economic growth and reduce poverty around the world 1 Formed in 1944 started on 27 December 1945 9 at the Bretton Woods Conference primarily by the ideas of Harry Dexter White and John Maynard Keynes 10 it came into formal existence in 1945 with 29 member countries and the goal of reconstructing the international monetary system It now plays a central role in the management of balance of payments difficulties and international financial crises 11 Countries contribute funds to a pool through a quota system from which countries experiencing balance of payments problems can borrow money As of 2016 update the fund had XDR 477 billion about US 667 billion 9 The IMF is regarded as the global lender of last resort International Monetary FundIMF Headquarters Washington DC AbbreviationIMFFormation27 December 1945 77 years ago 1945 12 27 TypeInternational financial institutionPurposePromote international monetary co operation facilitate international trade foster sustainable economic growth make resources available to members experiencing balance of payments difficulties prevent and assist with recovery from international financial crises 1 HeadquartersWashington D C U S Coordinates38 53 56 N 77 2 39 W 38 89889 N 77 04417 W 38 89889 77 04417RegionWorldwideMembership190 countries 189 UN countries and Kosovo 2 Official languageEnglish 3 Managing DirectorKristalina GeorgievaFirst Deputy Managing DirectorGita Gopinath 4 Chief EconomistPierre Olivier Gourinchas 5 Main organBoard of GovernorsParent organization United Nations 6 7 Budget 2022 1 2 billion USD 8 Staff2 400 1 WebsiteIMF orgThrough the fund and other activities such as the gathering of statistics and analysis surveillance of its members economies and the demand for particular policies 12 the IMF works to influence the economies of its member countries 13 The organization s objectives stated in the Articles of Agreement are 14 to promote international monetary co operation international trade high employment exchange rate stability sustainable economic growth and making resources available to member countries in financial difficulty 15 IMF funds come from two major sources quotas and loans Quotas which are pooled funds of member nations generate most IMF funds The size of a member s quota depends on its economic and financial importance in the world Nations with greater economic significance have larger quotas The quotas are increased periodically as a means of boosting the IMF s resources in the form of special drawing rights 16 The current managing director MD and Chairwoman of the IMF is Bulgarian economist Kristalina Georgieva who has held the post since October 1 2019 17 Indian American economist Gita Gopinath who previously served as Chief Economist was appointed as First Deputy Managing Director effective January 21 2022 18 Pierre Olivier Gourinchas replaced Gopinath as Chief Economist on January 24 2022 19 Contents 1 Functions 1 1 Surveillance of the global economy 1 2 Conditionality of loans 1 2 1 Structural adjustment 1 2 2 Benefits 2 History 2 1 20th century 2 2 21st century 2 2 1 Response and analysis of coronavirus 3 Member countries 3 1 Qualifications 3 2 Benefits 4 Leadership 4 1 Board of Governors 4 2 Executive Board 4 3 Managing Director 4 3 1 List of Managing Directors 4 4 First Deputy Managing Director 4 4 1 List of First Deputy Managing Directors 4 5 Chief Economist 4 5 1 List of Chief Economists 5 Voting power 5 1 Effects of the quota system 5 2 Inflexibility of voting power 5 3 Overcoming borrower creditor divide 6 Use 6 1 Exceptional Access Framework sovereign debt 7 Impact 8 Criticisms 8 1 Conditionality 8 2 Reform 8 2 1 Function and policies 8 2 2 US influence and voting reform 8 3 Support of dictatorships 8 4 Impact on access to food 8 5 Impact on public health 8 6 Impact on environment 9 IMF and globalization 9 1 Impact on gender equality 10 Scandals 11 Alternatives 12 In the media 13 See also 14 Notes 15 References 15 1 Footnotes 15 2 Bibliography 16 Further reading 17 External linksFunctions Edit Board of Governors International Monetary Fund 1999 According to the IMF itself it works to foster global growth and economic stability by providing policy advice and financing the members by working with developing countries to help them achieve macroeconomic stability and reduce poverty 20 The rationale for this is that private international capital markets function imperfectly and many countries have limited access to financial markets Such market imperfections together with balance of payments financing provide the justification for official financing without which many countries could only correct large external payment imbalances through measures with adverse economic consequences 21 The IMF provides alternate sources of financing such as the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility citation needed Upon the founding of the IMF its three primary functions were to oversee the fixed exchange rate arrangements between countries 22 thus helping national governments manage their exchange rates and allowing these governments to prioritize economic growth 23 and to provide short term capital to aid the balance of payments 22 and prevent the spread of international economic crises to help mend the pieces of the international economy after the Great Depression and World War II 24 as well as to provide capital investments for economic growth and projects such as infrastructure The IMF s role was fundamentally altered by the floating exchange rates after 1971 It shifted to examining the economic policies of countries with IMF loan agreements to determine whether a shortage of capital was due to economic fluctuations or economic policy The IMF also researched what types of government policy would ensure economic recovery 22 A particular concern of the IMF was to prevent financial crises such as those in Mexico in 1982 Brazil in 1987 East Asia in 1997 98 and Russia in 1998 from spreading and threatening the entire global financial and currency system The challenge was to promote and implement a policy that reduced the frequency of crises among emerging market countries especially the middle income countries which are vulnerable to massive capital outflows 25 Rather than maintaining a position of oversight of only exchange rates their function became one of surveillance of the overall macroeconomic performance of member countries Their role became a lot more active because the IMF now manages economic policy rather than just exchange rates In addition the IMF negotiates conditions on lending and loans under their policy of conditionality 22 which was established in the 1950s 23 Low income countries can borrow on concessional terms which means there is a period of time with no interest rates through the Extended Credit Facility ECF the Standby Credit Facility SCF and the Rapid Credit Facility RCF Non concessional loans which include interest rates are provided mainly through the Stand By Arrangements SBA the Flexible Credit Line FCL the Precautionary and Liquidity Line PLL and the Extended Fund Facility The IMF provides emergency assistance via the Rapid Financing Instrument RFI to members facing urgent balance of payments needs 26 Surveillance of the global economy Edit The IMF is mandated to oversee the international monetary and financial system and monitor the economic and financial policies of its member countries 27 This activity is known as surveillance and facilitates international co operation 28 Since the demise of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates in the early 1970s surveillance has evolved largely by way of changes in procedures rather than through the adoption of new obligations 27 The responsibilities changed from those of guardians to those of overseers of members policies The Fund typically analyses the appropriateness of each member country s economic and financial policies for achieving orderly economic growth and assesses the consequences of these policies for other countries and for the global economy 27 For instance The IMF played a significant role in individual countries such as Armenia and Belarus in providing financial support to achieve stabilization financing from 2009 to 2019 29 The maximum sustainable debt level of a polity which is watched closely by the IMF was defined in 2011 by IMF economists to be 120 30 Indeed it was at this number that the Greek economy melted down in 2010 31 IMF Data Dissemination Systems participants IMF member using SDDS IMF member using GDDS IMF member not using any of the DDSystems non IMF entity using SDDS non IMF entity using GDDS no interaction with the IMF In 1995 the International Monetary Fund began to work on data dissemination standards with the view of guiding IMF member countries to disseminate their economic and financial data to the public The International Monetary and Financial Committee IMFC endorsed the guidelines for the dissemination standards and they were split into two tiers The General Data Dissemination System GDDS and the Special Data Dissemination Standard SDDS The executive board approved the SDDS and GDDS in 1996 and 1997 respectively and subsequent amendments were published in a revised Guide to the General Data Dissemination System The system is aimed primarily at statisticians and aims to improve many aspects of statistical systems in a country It is also part of the World Bank Millennium Development Goals MDG and Poverty Reduction Strategic Papers PRSPs The primary objective of the GDDS is to encourage member countries to build a framework to improve data quality and statistical capacity building to evaluate statistical needs set priorities in improving timeliness transparency reliability and accessibility of financial and economic data Some countries initially used the GDDS but later upgraded to SDDS Some entities that are not themselves IMF members also contribute statistical data to the systems Palestinian Authority GDDS Hong Kong SDDS Macau GDDS 32 Institutions of the European Union The European Central Bank for the Eurozone SDDS Eurostat for the whole EU SDDS thus providing data from Cyprus not using any DDSystem on its own and Malta using only GDDS on its own A 2021 study found that the IMF s surveillance activities have a substantial impact on sovereign debt with much greater impacts in emerging than high income economies 33 Conditionality of loans Edit IMF conditionality is a set of policies or conditions that the IMF requires in exchange for financial resources 22 The IMF does require collateral from countries for loans but also requires the government seeking assistance to correct its macroeconomic imbalances in the form of policy reform 34 If the conditions are not met the funds are withheld 22 35 The concept of conditionality was introduced in a 1952 executive board decision and later incorporated into the Articles of Agreement Conditionality is associated with economic theory as well as an enforcement mechanism for repayment Stemming primarily from the work of Jacques Polak the theoretical underpinning of conditionality was the monetary approach to the balance of payments 23 Structural adjustment Edit Further information Structural adjustment Some of the conditions for structural adjustment can include Cutting expenditures or raising revenues also known as austerity Focusing economic output on direct export and resource extraction Devaluation of currencies Trade liberalisation or lifting import and export restrictions Increasing the stability of investment by supplementing foreign direct investment with the opening of facilities for the domestic market Balancing budgets and not overspending Removing price controls and state subsidies Privatization or divestiture of all or part of state owned enterprises Enhancing the rights of foreign investors vis a vis national laws Improving governance and fighting corruption These conditions are known as the Washington Consensus Benefits Edit These loan conditions ensure that the borrowing country will be able to repay the IMF and that the country will not attempt to solve their balance of payment problems in a way that would negatively impact the international economy 36 37 The incentive problem of moral hazard when economic agents maximise their own utility to the detriment of others because they do not bear the full consequences of their actions is mitigated through conditions rather than providing collateral countries in need of IMF loans do not generally possess internationally valuable collateral anyway 37 Conditionality also reassures the IMF that the funds lent to them will be used for the purposes defined by the Articles of Agreement and provides safeguards that country will be able to rectify its macroeconomic and structural imbalances 37 In the judgment of the IMF the adoption by the member of certain corrective measures or policies will allow it to repay the IMF thereby ensuring that the resources will be available to support other members 35 As of 2004 update borrowing countries have had a good track record for repaying credit extended under the IMF s regular lending facilities with full interest over the duration of the loan This indicates that IMF lending does not impose a burden on creditor countries as lending countries receive market rate interest on most of their quota subscription plus any of their own currency subscriptions that are loaned out by the IMF plus all of the reserve assets that they provide the IMF 21 History Edit20th century Edit Plaque Commemorating the Formation of the IMF in July 1944 at the Bretton Woods Conference IMF Headquarters 1 in Washington D C designed by Moshe Safdie The Gold Room within the Mount Washington Hotel where the Bretton Woods Conference attendees signed the agreements creating the IMF and World Bank First page of the Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund 1 March 1946 Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs archives The IMF was originally laid out as a part of the Bretton Woods system exchange agreement in 1944 38 During the Great Depression countries sharply raised barriers to trade in an attempt to improve their failing economies This led to the devaluation of national currencies and a decline in world trade 39 This breakdown in international monetary cooperation created a need for oversight The representatives of 45 governments met at the Bretton Woods Conference in the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods New Hampshire in the United States to discuss a framework for postwar international economic cooperation and how to rebuild Europe There were two views on the role the IMF should assume as a global economic institution American delegate Harry Dexter White foresaw an IMF that functioned more like a bank making sure that borrowing states could repay their debts on time 40 Most of White s plan was incorporated into the final acts adopted at Bretton Woods British economist John Maynard Keynes on the other hand imagined that the IMF would be a cooperative fund upon which member states could draw to maintain economic activity and employment through periodic crises This view suggested an IMF that helped governments and to act as the United States government had during the New Deal to the great recession of the 1930s 40 The IMF formally came into existence on 27 December 1945 when the first 29 countries ratified its Articles of Agreement 41 By the end of 1946 the IMF had grown to 39 members 42 On 1 March 1947 the IMF began its financial operations 43 and on 8 May France became the first country to borrow from it 42 The IMF was one of the key organizations of the international economic system its design allowed the system to balance the rebuilding of international capitalism with the maximization of national economic sovereignty and human welfare also known as embedded liberalism 23 The IMF s influence in the global economy steadily increased as it accumulated more members The increase reflected in particular the attainment of political independence by many African countries and more recently the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union because most countries in the Soviet sphere of influence did not join the IMF 39 The Bretton Woods exchange rate system prevailed until 1971 when the United States government suspended the convertibility of the US and dollar reserves held by other governments into gold This is known as the Nixon Shock 39 The changes to the IMF articles of agreement reflecting these changes were ratified in 1976 by the Jamaica Accords Later in the 1970s large commercial banks began lending to states because they were awash in cash deposited by oil exporters The lending of the so called money center banks led to the IMF changing its role in the 1980s after a world recession provoked a crisis that brought the IMF back into global financial governance 44 21st century Edit The IMF provided two major lending packages in the early 2000s to Argentina during the 1998 2002 Argentine great depression and Uruguay after the 2002 Uruguay banking crisis 45 However by the mid 2000s IMF lending was at its lowest share of world GDP since the 1970s 46 In May 2010 the IMF participated in 3 11 proportion in the first Greek bailout that totaled 110 billion to address the great accumulation of public debt caused by continuing large public sector deficits As part of the bailout the Greek government agreed to adopt austerity measures that would reduce the deficit from 11 in 2009 to well below 3 in 2014 47 The bailout did not include debt restructuring measures such as a haircut to the chagrin of the Swiss Brazilian Indian Russian and Argentinian Directors of the IMF with the Greek authorities themselves at the time PM George Papandreou and Finance Minister Giorgos Papakonstantinou ruling out a haircut 48 A second bailout package of more than 100 billion was agreed over the course of a few months from October 2011 during which time Papandreou was forced from office The so called Troika of which the IMF is part are joint managers of this programme which was approved by the executive directors of the IMF on 15 March 2012 for XDR 23 8 billion 49 and saw private bondholders take a haircut of upwards of 50 In the interval between May 2010 and February 2012 the private banks of Holland France and Germany reduced exposure to Greek debt from 122 billion to 66 billion 48 50 As of January 2012 update the largest borrowers from the IMF in order were Greece Portugal Ireland Romania and Ukraine 51 On 25 March 2013 a 10 billion international bailout of Cyprus was agreed by the Troika at the cost to the Cypriots of its agreement to close the country s second largest bank to impose a one time bank deposit levy on Bank of Cyprus uninsured deposits 52 53 No insured deposit of 100k or less were to be affected under the terms of a novel bail in scheme 54 55 The topic of sovereign debt restructuring was taken up by the IMF in April 2013 for the first time since 2005 in a report entitled Sovereign Debt Restructuring Recent Developments and Implications for the Fund s Legal and Policy Framework 56 The paper which was discussed by the board on 20 May 57 summarised the recent experiences in Greece St Kitts and Nevis Belize and Jamaica An explanatory interview with Deputy Director Hugh Bredenkamp was published a few days later 58 as was a deconstruction by Matina Stevis of The Wall Street Journal 59 In the October 2013 Fiscal Monitor publication the IMF suggested that a capital levy capable of reducing Euro area government debt ratios to end 2007 levels would require a very high tax rate of about 10 60 The Fiscal Affairs department of the IMF headed at the time by Acting Director Sanjeev Gupta produced a January 2014 report entitled Fiscal Policy and Income Inequality that stated that Some taxes levied on wealth especially on immovable property are also an option for economies seeking more progressive taxation Property taxes are equitable and efficient but underutilized in many economies There is considerable scope to exploit this tax more fully both as a revenue source and as a redistributive instrument 61 At the end of March 2014 the IMF secured an 18 billion bailout fund for the provisional government of Ukraine in the aftermath of the Revolution of Dignity 62 63 Response and analysis of coronavirus Edit In late 2019 the IMF estimated global growth in 2020 to reach 3 4 but due to the coronavirus in November 2020 it expected the global economy to shrink by 4 4 64 65 In March 2020 Kristalina Georgieva announced that the IMF stood ready to mobilize 1 trillion as its response to the COVID 19 pandemic 66 This was in addition to the 50 billion fund it had announced two weeks earlier 67 of which 5 billion had already been requested by Iran 68 One day earlier on 11 March the UK called to pledge 150 million to the IMF catastrophe relief fund 69 It came to light on 27 March that more than 80 poor and middle income countries had sought a bailout due to the coronavirus 70 On 13 April 2020 the IMF said that it would provide immediate debt relief to 25 member countries under its Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust CCRT programme 71 In November 2020 the Fund warned the economic recovery may be losing momentum as COVID 19 infections rise again and that more economic help would be needed 65 Member countries Edit IMF member states IMF member states not accepting the obligations of Article VIII Sections 2 3 and 4 72 Not all member countries of the IMF are sovereign states and therefore not all member countries of the IMF are members of the United Nations 73 Amidst member countries of the IMF that are not member states of the UN are non sovereign areas with special jurisdictions that are officially under the sovereignty of full UN member states such as Aruba Curacao Hong Kong and Macao as well as Kosovo 74 75 The corporate members appoint ex officio voting members who are listed below All members of the IMF are also International Bank for Reconstruction and Development IBRD members and vice versa 76 Former members are Cuba which left in 1964 77 and Taiwan which was ejected from the IMF 78 in 1980 after losing the support of then United States President Jimmy Carter and was replaced by the People s Republic of China 79 However Taiwan Province of China is still listed in the official IMF indices 80 Apart from Cuba the other UN states that do not belong to the IMF are Liechtenstein Monaco and North Korea However Andorra became the 190th member on 16 October 2020 81 82 The former Czechoslovakia was expelled in 1954 for failing to provide required data and was readmitted in 1990 after the Velvet Revolution Poland withdrew in 1950 allegedly pressured by the Soviet Union but returned in 1986 83 Qualifications Edit Any country may apply to be a part of the IMF Post IMF formation in the early postwar period rules for IMF membership were left relatively loose Members needed to make periodic membership payments towards their quota to refrain from currency restrictions unless granted IMF permission to abide by the Code of Conduct in the IMF Articles of Agreement and to provide national economic information However stricter rules were imposed on governments that applied to the IMF for funding 23 The countries that joined the IMF between 1945 and 1971 agreed to keep their exchange rates secured at rates that could be adjusted only to correct a fundamental disequilibrium in the balance of payments and only with the IMF s agreement 84 Benefits Edit Member countries of the IMF have access to information on the economic policies of all member countries the opportunity to influence other members economic policies technical assistance in banking fiscal affairs and exchange matters financial support in times of payment difficulties and increased opportunities for trade and investment 85 Leadership EditThis section needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources International Monetary Fund news newspapers books scholar JSTOR February 2018 Learn how and when to remove this template message Board of Governors Edit The Board of Governors consists of one governor and one alternate governor for each member country Each member country appoints its two governors The Board normally meets once a year and is responsible for electing or appointing an executive director to the executive board While the Board of Governors is officially responsible for approving quota increases special drawing right allocations the admittance of new members compulsory withdrawal of members and amendments to the Articles of Agreement and By Laws in practice it has delegated most of its powers to the IMF s executive board 86 The Board of Governors is advised by the International Monetary and Financial Committee and the Development Committee The International Monetary and Financial Committee has 24 members and monitors developments in global liquidity and the transfer of resources to developing countries 87 The Development Committee has 25 members and advises on critical development issues and on financial resources required to promote economic development in developing countries They also advise on trade and environmental issues The Board of Governors reports directly to the managing director of the IMF Kristalina Georgieva 87 Executive Board Edit 24 Executive Directors make up the executive board The executive directors represent all 189 member countries in a geographically based roster 88 Countries with large economies have their own executive director but most countries are grouped in constituencies representing four or more countries 86 Following the 2008 Amendment on Voice and Participation which came into effect in March 2011 89 seven countries each appoint an executive director the United States Japan China Germany France the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia 88 The remaining 17 Directors represent constituencies consisting of 2 to 23 countries This Board usually meets several times each week 90 The Board membership and constituency is scheduled for periodic review every eight years 91 List of Executive Directors of the IMF as of February 2019Country Region Number of Member s Represented Director Country with Most VotesUnited States United States 1 Mark Rosen United StatesJapan Japan 1 Masaaki Kaizuka JapanChina China 1 Jin Zhongxia ChinaBelgium Benelux Israel and Eastern Europe 15 Anthony De Lannoy NetherlandsGermany Germany 1 Steffen Meyer GermanyColombia Spain and Central America 8 Leonardo Villar SpainIndonesia Southeast Asia 13 Juda Agung IndonesiaItaly Mediterranean Europe 6 Domenico G Fanizza ItalyFrance France 1 Herve de Villeroche FranceUnited Kingdom United Kingdom 1 Shona E Riach United KingdomAustralia Far East 15 Nigel Ray South KoreaCanada North Atlantic and the Caribbean 12 Louise Levonian CanadaSweden Northern Europe 8 Thomas Ostros SwedenTurkey Central Europe 8 Raci Kaya TurkeyBrazil Northern South America 11 Alexandre Tombini BrazilIndia Indian subcontinent 4 Surjit Bhalla IndiaSouth Africa Africa 1 23 Dumisani Mahlinza South AfricaSwitzerland Switzerland Poland and the Near East 9 Paul Inderbinen SwitzerlandRussia Russia 2 Aleksei V Mozhin RussiaIran Iran and the Middle East 8 Jafar Mojarrad IranEgypt North Africa and the Middle East 11 Hazem Beblawi United Arab EmiratesSaudi Arabia Saudi Arabia 1 Maher Mouminah Saudi ArabiaMauritania Africa 2 23 Mohamed Lemine Raghani Democratic Republic of the CongoArgentina Southern South America 6 Gabriel Lopetegui Argentina Managing Director Edit The IMF is led by a managing director who is head of the staff and serves as Chairman of the executive board The managing director is the most powerful position at the IMF 92 Historically the IMF s managing director has been a European citizen and the president of the World Bank has been an American citizen However this standard is increasingly being questioned and competition for these two posts may soon open up to include other qualified candidates from any part of the world 93 94 In August 2019 the International Monetary Fund has removed the age limit which is 65 or over for its managing director position 95 In 2011 the world s largest developing countries the BRIC states issued a statement declaring that the tradition of appointing a European as managing director undermined the legitimacy of the IMF and called for the appointment to be merit based 93 96 List of Managing Directors Edit Term Dates Name Citizenship Background1 6 May 1946 5 May 1951 Camille Gutt Belgium Politician Economist Lawyer Economics Minister Finance Minister2 3 August 1951 3 October 1956 Ivar Rooth Sweden Economist Lawyer Central Banker3 21 November 1956 5 May 1963 Per Jacobsson Sweden Economist Lawyer Academic League of Nations BIS4 1 September 1963 31 August 1973 Pierre Paul Schweitzer France Lawyer Businessman Civil Servant Central Banker5 1 September 1973 18 June 1978 Johan Witteveen Netherlands Politician Economist Academic Finance Minister Deputy Prime Minister CPB6 18 June 1978 15 January 1987 Jacques de Larosiere France Businessman Civil Servant Central Banker7 16 January 1987 14 February 2000 Michel Camdessus France Economist Civil Servant Central Banker8 1 May 2000 4 March 2004 Horst Kohler Germany Politician Economist Civil Servant EBRD President9 7 June 2004 31 October 2007 Rodrigo Rato Spain Politician Businessman Economics Minister Finance Minister Deputy Prime Minister10 1 November 2007 18 May 2011 Dominique Strauss Kahn France Politician Economist Lawyer Businessman Economics Minister Finance Minister11 5 July 2011 12 September 2019 Christine Lagarde France Politician Lawyer Finance Minister12 1 October 2019 present Kristalina Georgieva Bulgaria Politician Economist On 28 June 2011 Christine Lagarde was named managing director of the IMF replacing Dominique Strauss Kahn Former managing director Dominique Strauss Kahn was arrested in connection with charges of sexually assaulting a New York hotel room attendant and resigned on 18 May The charges were later dropped 97 On 28 June 2011 Christine Lagarde was confirmed as managing director of the IMF for a five year term starting on 5 July 2011 98 99 She was re elected by consensus for a second five year term starting 5 July 2016 being the only candidate nominated for the post of managing director 100 First Deputy Managing Director Edit The managing director is assisted by a First Deputy managing director FDMD who by convention has always been a citizen of the United States 101 Together the managing director and their First Deputy lead the senior management of the IMF Like the managing director the First Deputy traditionally serves a five year term List of First Deputy Managing Directors Edit No Dates Name Citizenship Background1 9 February 1949 24 January 1952 Andrew Overby United States Banker Senior U S Treasury Official2 16 March 1953 31 October 1962 Merle Cochran United States U S Foreign Service Officer3 1 November 1962 28 February 1974 Frank Southard United States Economist Civil Servant4 1 March 1974 31 May 1984 William Dale United States Civil Servant5 1 June 1984 31 August 1994 Richard Erb United States Economist White House Official6 1 September 1994 31 August 2001 Stanley Fischer Israel United States Economist Central Banker Banker7 1 September 2001 31 August 2006 Anne Kreuger United States Economist8 17 July 2006 11 November 2011 John Lipsky United States Economist9 1 September 2011 28 February 2020 David Lipton United States Economist Senior U S Treasury Official10 20 March 2020 20 January 2022 Geoffrey Okamoto United States Senior U S Treasury Official Bank Consultant11 21 January 2022 present Gita Gopinath United States Professor at Harvard University s Economics departmentChief Economist of IMFChief Economist Edit Main article Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund The chief economist leads the research division of the IMF and is a senior official of the IMF 102 List of Chief Economists Edit Term Dates Name Citizenship1 1946 1958 Edward Bernstein 103 United States2 1958 1980 Jacques Polak Netherlands3 1980 1987 William Hood 104 105 Canada4 1987 1991 Jacob Frenkel 106 Israel5 August 1991 29 June 2001 Michael Mussa 107 United States6 August 2001 September 2003 Kenneth Rogoff 108 United States7 September 2003 January 2007 Raghuram Rajan 109 India8 March 2007 31 August 2008 Simon Johnson 110 United Kingdom United States9 1 September 2008 8 September 2015 Olivier Blanchard 111 France10 8 September 2015 31 December 2018 Maurice Obstfeld 112 United States11 1 January 2019 21 January 2022 Gita Gopinath 113 United States12 24 January 2022 present Pierre Olivier Gourinchas 114 FranceVoting power EditVoting power in the IMF is based on a quota system Each member has a number of basic votes equal to 5 502 of the total votes 115 plus one additional vote for each special drawing right SDR of 100 000 of a member country s quota 116 The SDR is the unit of account of the IMF and represents a potential claim to currency It is based on a basket of key international currencies The basic votes generate a slight bias in favour of small countries but the additional votes determined by SDR outweigh this bias 116 Changes in the voting shares require approval by a super majority of 85 of voting power 11 Quota and voting shares for the largest IMF members 2 Rank IMF Member country Quota Governor Alternate No of votes of totalvotesmillions ofXDR of thetotal1 United States 82 994 2 17 43 Andy Baukol Vacant 831 401 16 502 Japan 30 820 5 6 47 Shunichi Suzuki Haruhiko Kuroda 309 664 6 143 China 30 482 9 6 40 Gang Yi Yulu Chen 306 288 6 084 Germany 26 634 4 5 59 Joachim Nagel Christian Lindner 267 803 5 315 France 20 155 1 4 23 Bruno Le Maire Francois Villeroy de Galhau 203 010 4 036 United Kingdom 20 155 1 4 23 Jeremy Hunt MP Andrew Bailey 203 010 4 037 Italy 15 070 0 3 16 Daniele Franco Ignazio Visco 152 159 3 028 India 13 114 4 2 75 Nirmala Sitharaman Shaktikanta Das 132 603 2 639 Russia 12 903 7 2 71 Anton Siluanov Elvira S Nabiullina 130 496 2 5910 Brazil 11 042 0 2 32 Paulo Guedes Roberto Campos Neto 111 879 2 2211 Canada 11 023 9 2 31 Chrystia Freeland Tiff Macklem 111 698 2 2212 Saudi Arabia 9 992 6 2 10 Mohammed Al Jadaan Fahad A Almubarak 101 385 2 0113 Spain 9 535 5 2 00 Nadia Calvino Pablo Hernandez de Cos 96 814 1 9214 Mexico 8 912 7 1 87 Rogelio Eduardo Ramirez de la O Victoria Rodriguez Ceja 90 586 1 8015 Netherlands 8 736 5 1 83 Klaas Knot Christiaan Rebergen 88 824 1 7616 South Korea 8 582 7 1 80 Choo Kyung ho Rhee Chang yong 87 286 1 7317 Australia 6 572 4 1 38 Jim Chalmers M P This article needs to be updated Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information November 2022 Steven Kennedy 67 183 1 3318 Belgium 6 410 7 1 35 Pierre Wunsch Vincent Van Peteghem 65 566 1 3019 Switzerland 5 771 1 1 21 Thomas Jordan Ueli Maurer 59 170 1 1720 Turkey 4 658 6 0 98 Nureddin Nebati Sahap Kavcioglu 48 045 0 9521 Indonesia 4 648 4 0 98 Perry Warjiyo Sri Mulyani Indrawati 47 943 0 9522 Sweden 4 430 0 0 93 Stefan Ingves Elin Eliasson 45 759 0 9123 Poland 4 095 4 0 86 Mateusz Morawiecki Marta Kightley 42 413 0 8424 Austria 3 932 0 0 83 Robert Holzmann Gottfried Haber 40 779 0 8125 Singapore 3 891 9 0 82 Tharman Shanmugaratnam Ravi Menon 40 378 0 80In December 2015 the United States Congress adopted a legislation authorising the 2010 Quota and Governance Reforms As a result all 190 members quotas will increase from a total of about XDR 238 5 billion to about XDR 477 billion while the quota shares and voting power of the IMF s poorest member countries will be protected more than 6 percent of quota shares will shift to dynamic emerging market and developing countries and also from over represented to under represented members four emerging market countries Brazil China India and Russia will be among the ten largest members of the IMF Other top 10 members are the United States Japan Germany France the United Kingdom and Italy 117 Effects of the quota system Edit The IMF s quota system was created to raise funds for loans 23 Each IMF member country is assigned a quota or contribution that reflects the country s relative size in the global economy Each member s quota also determines its relative voting power Thus financial contributions from member governments are linked to voting power in the organization 116 This system follows the logic of a shareholder controlled organization wealthy countries have more say in the making and revision of rules 23 Since decision making at the IMF reflects each member s relative economic position in the world wealthier countries that provide more money to the IMF have more influence than poorer members that contribute less nonetheless the IMF focuses on redistribution 116 Inflexibility of voting power Edit Quotas are normally reviewed every five years and can be increased when deemed necessary by the Board of Governors IMF voting shares are relatively inflexible countries that grow economically have tended to become under represented as their voting power lags behind 11 Currently reforming the representation of developing countries within the IMF has been suggested 116 These countries economies represent a large portion of the global economic system but this is not reflected in the IMF s decision making process through the nature of the quota system Joseph Stiglitz argues There is a need to provide more effective voice and representation for developing countries which now represent a much larger portion of world economic activity since 1944 when the IMF was created 118 In 2008 a number of quota reforms were passed including shifting 6 of quota shares to dynamic emerging markets and developing countries 119 Overcoming borrower creditor divide Edit The IMF s membership is divided along income lines certain countries provide financial resources while others use these resources Both developed country creditors and developing country borrowers are members of the IMF The developed countries provide the financial resources but rarely enter into IMF loan agreements they are the creditors Conversely the developing countries use the lending services but contribute little to the pool of money available to lend because their quotas are smaller they are the borrowers Thus tension is created around governance issues because these two groups creditors and borrowers have fundamentally different interests 116 The criticism is that the system of voting power distribution through a quota system institutionalizes borrower subordination and creditor dominance The resulting division of the IMF s membership into borrowers and non borrowers has increased the controversy around conditionality because the borrowers are interested in increasing loan access while creditors want to maintain reassurance that the loans will be repaid 120 Use EditA recent when source revealed that the average overall use of IMF credit per decade increased in real terms by 21 between the 1970s and 1980s and increased again by just over 22 from the 1980s to the 1991 2005 period Another study has suggested that since 1950 the continent of Africa alone has received 300 billion from the IMF the World Bank and affiliate institutions 121 A study by Bumba Mukherjee found that developing democratic countries benefit more from IMF programs than developing autocratic countries because policy making and the process of deciding where loaned money is used is more transparent within a democracy 121 One study done by Randall Stone found that although earlier studies found little impact of IMF programs on balance of payments more recent studies using more sophisticated methods and larger samples usually found IMF programs improved the balance of payments 38 Exceptional Access Framework sovereign debt Edit The Exceptional Access Framework was created in 2003 when John B Taylor was Under Secretary of the US Treasury for International Affairs The new Framework became fully operational in February 2003 and it was applied in the subsequent decisions on Argentina and Brazil 122 Its purpose was to place some sensible rules and limits on the way the IMF makes loans to support governments with debt problem especially in emerging markets and thereby move away from the bailout mentality of the 1990s Such a reform was essential for ending the crisis atmosphere that then existed in emerging markets The reform was closely related to and put in place nearly simultaneously with the actions of several emerging market countries to place collective action clauses in their bond contracts In 2010 the framework was abandoned so the IMF could make loans to Greece in an unsustainable and political situation 123 124 The topic of sovereign debt restructuring was taken up by IMF staff in April 2013 for the first time since 2005 in a report entitled Sovereign Debt Restructuring Recent Developments and Implications for the Fund s Legal and Policy Framework 56 The paper which was discussed by the board on 20 May 57 summarised the recent experiences in Greece St Kitts and Nevis Belize and Jamaica An explanatory interview with Deputy Director Hugh Bredenkamp was published a few days later 58 as was a deconstruction by Matina Stevis of The Wall Street Journal 59 The staff was directed to formulate an updated policy which was accomplished on 22 May 2014 with a report entitled The Fund s Lending Framework and Sovereign Debt Preliminary Considerations and taken up by the executive board on 13 June 125 The staff proposed that in circumstances where a Sovereign member has lost market access and debt is considered sustainable the IMF would be able to provide Exceptional Access on the basis of a debt operation that involves an extension of maturities which was labeled a reprofiling operation These reprofiling operations would generally be less costly to the debtor and creditors and thus to the system overall relative to either an upfront debt reduction operation or a bail out that is followed by debt reduction and would be envisaged only when both a a member has lost market access and b debt is assessed to be sustainable but not with high probability Creditors will only agree if they understand that such an amendment is necessary to avoid a worse outcome namely a default and or an operation involving debt reduction Collective action clauses which now exist in most but not all bonds would be relied upon to address collective action problems 125 Impact EditAccording to a 2002 study by Randall W Stone the academic literature on the IMF shows no consensus on the long term effects of IMF programs on growth 126 Some research has found that IMF loans can reduce the chance of a future banking crisis 127 while other studies have found that they can increase the risk of political crises 128 IMF programs can reduce the effects of a currency crisis 129 Some research has found that IMF programs are less effective in countries which possess a developed country patron be it by foreign aid membership of postcolonial institutions or UN voting patterns seemingly due to this patron allowing countries to flaunt IMF program rules as these rules are not consistently enforced 130 Some research has found that IMF loans reduce economic growth due to creating an economic moral hazard reducing public investment reducing incentives to create a robust domestic policies and reducing private investor confidence 131 Other research has indicated that IMF loans can have a positive impact on economic growth and that their effects are highly nuanced 132 Criticisms Edit Anarchist protest against the IMF and corporate bailout Overseas Development Institute ODI research undertaken in 1980 included criticisms of the IMF which support the analysis that it is a pillar of what activist Titus Alexander calls global apartheid 133 Developed countries were seen to have a more dominant role and control over less developed countries LDCs The Fund worked on the incorrect assumption that all payments disequilibria were caused domestically The Group of 24 G 24 on behalf of LDC members and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development UNCTAD complained that the IMF did not distinguish sufficiently between disequilibria with predominantly external as opposed to internal causes This criticism was voiced in the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis Then LDCs found themselves with payment deficits due to adverse changes in their terms of trade with the Fund prescribing stabilization programmes similar to those suggested for deficits caused by government over spending Faced with long term externally generated disequilibria the G 24 argued for more time for LDCs to adjust their economies Some IMF policies may be anti developmental the report said that deflationary effects of IMF programmes quickly led to losses of output and employment in economies where incomes were low and unemployment was high Moreover the burden of the deflation is disproportionately borne by the poor The IMF s initial policies were based in theory and influenced by differing opinions and departmental rivalries Critics suggest that its intentions to implement these policies in countries with widely varying economic circumstances were misinformed and lacked economic rationale ODI conclusions were that the IMF s very nature of promoting market oriented approaches attracted unavoidable criticism On the other hand the IMF could serve as a scapegoat while allowing governments to blame international bankers The ODI conceded that the IMF was insensitive to political aspirations of LDCs while its policy conditions were inflexible 134 Argentina which had been considered by the IMF to be a model country in its compliance to policy proposals by the Bretton Woods institutions experienced a catastrophic economic crisis in 2001 135 which some believe to have been caused by IMF induced budget restrictions which undercut the government s ability to sustain national infrastructure even in crucial areas such as health education and security and privatisation of strategically vital national resources 136 Others attribute the crisis to Argentina s misdesigned fiscal federalism which caused subnational spending to increase rapidly 137 The crisis added to widespread hatred of this institution in Argentina and other South American countries with many blaming the IMF for the region s economic problems The current as of early 2006 trend toward moderate left wing governments in the region and a growing concern with the development of a regional economic policy largely independent of big business pressures has been ascribed to this crisis citation needed In 2006 a senior ActionAid policy analyst Akanksha Marphatia stated that IMF policies in Africa undermine any possibility of meeting the Millennium Development Goals MDGs due to imposed restrictions that prevent spending on important sectors such as education and health 138 In an interview 2008 05 19 the former Romanian Prime Minister Călin Popescu Tăriceanu claimed that Since 2005 IMF is constantly making mistakes when it appreciates the country s economic performances 139 Former Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere who claimed that debt ridden African states were ceding sovereignty to the IMF and the World Bank famously asked Who elected the IMF to be the ministry of finance for every country in the world 140 141 Former chief economist of IMF and former Reserve Bank of India RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan who predicted the financial crisis of 2007 08 criticised the IMF for remaining a sideline player to the developed world He criticised the IMF for praising the monetary policies of the US which he believed were wreaking havoc in emerging markets 142 He had been critical of ultra loose money policies of some unnamed countries 143 144 Countries such as Zambia have not received proper aid with long lasting effects leading to concern from economists Since 2005 Zambia as well as 29 other African countries did receive debt write offs which helped with the country s medical and education funds However Zambia returned to a debt of over half its GDP in less than a decade American economist William Easterly sceptical of the IMF s methods had initially warned that debt relief would simply encourage more reckless borrowing by crooked governments unless it was accompanied by reforms to speed up economic growth and improve governance according to The Economist 145 Conditionality Edit See also Debt trap diplomacy The IMF has been criticised for being out of touch with local economic conditions cultures and environments in the countries they are requiring policy reform 22 The economic advice the IMF gives might not always take into consideration the difference between what spending means on paper and how it is felt by citizens 146 Countries charge that with excessive conditionality they do not own the programmes and the links are broken between a recipient country s people its government and the goals being pursued by the IMF 147 Jeffrey Sachs argues that the IMF s usual prescription is budgetary belt tightening to countries who are much too poor to own belts 146 Sachs wrote that the IMF s role as a generalist institution specialising in macroeconomic issues needs reform Conditionality has also been criticised because a country can pledge collateral of acceptable assets to obtain waivers if one assumes that all countries are able to provide acceptable collateral 37 One view is that conditionality undermines domestic political institutions 148 The recipient governments are sacrificing policy autonomy in exchange for funds which can lead to public resentment of the local leadership for accepting and enforcing the IMF conditions Political instability can result from more leadership turnover as political leaders are replaced in electoral backlashes 22 IMF conditions are often criticised for reducing government services thus increasing unemployment 23 Another criticism is that IMF policies are only designed to address poor governance excessive government spending excessive government intervention in markets and too much state ownership 146 This assumes that this narrow range of issues represents the only possible problems everything is standardised and differing contexts are ignored 146 A country may also be compelled to accept conditions it would not normally accept had they not been in a financial crisis in need of assistance 35 On top of that regardless of what methodologies and data sets used it comes to same the conclusion of exacerbating income inequality With Gini coefficient it became clear that countries with IMF policies face increased income inequality 149 It is claimed that conditionalities retard social stability and hence inhibit the stated goals of the IMF while Structural Adjustment Programmes lead to an increase in poverty in recipient countries 150 The IMF sometimes advocates austerity programmes cutting public spending and increasing taxes even when the economy is weak to bring budgets closer to a balance thus reducing budget deficits Countries are often advised to lower their corporate tax rate In Globalization and Its Discontents Joseph E Stiglitz former chief economist and senior vice president at the World Bank criticises these policies 151 He argues that by converting to a more monetarist approach the purpose of the fund is no longer valid as it was designed to provide funds for countries to carry out Keynesian reflations and that the IMF was not participating in a conspiracy but it was reflecting the interests and ideology of the Western financial community 152 Stiglitz concludes Modern high tech warfare is designed to remove physical contact dropping bombs from 50 000 feet ensures that one does not feel what one does Modern economic management is similar from one s luxury hotel one can callously impose policies about which one would think twice if one knew the people whose lives one was destroying 151 The researchers Eric Toussaint and Damien Millet argue that the IMF s policies amount to a new form of colonisation that does not need a military presence Following the exigencies of the governments of the richest companies the IMF permitted countries in crisis to borrow in order to avoid default on their repayments Caught in the debt s downward spiral developing countries soon had no other recourse than to take on new debt in order to repay the old debt Before providing them with new loans at higher interest rates future leaders asked the IMF to intervene with the guarantee of ulterior reimbursement asking for a signed agreement with the said countries The IMF thus agreed to restart the flow of the finance pump on condition that the concerned countries first use this money to reimburse banks and other private lenders while restructuring their economy at the IMF s discretion these were the famous conditionalities detailed in the Structural Adjustment Programmes The IMF and its ultra liberal experts took control of the borrowing countries economic policies A new form of colonisation was thus instituted It was not even necessary to establish an administrative or military presence the debt alone maintained this new form of submission 153 International politics play an important role in IMF decision making The clout of member states is roughly proportional to its contribution to IMF finances The United States has the greatest number of votes and therefore wields the most influence Domestic politics often come into play with politicians in developing countries using conditionality to gain leverage over the opposition to influence policy 154 155 Reform Edit Function and policies Edit The IMF is only one of many international organisations and it is a generalist institution that deals only with macroeconomic issues its core areas of concern in developing countries are very narrow One proposed reform is a movement towards close partnership with other specialist agencies such as UNICEF the Food and Agriculture Organization FAO and the United Nations Development Program UNDP 146 Jeffrey Sachs argues in The End of Poverty that the IMF and the World Bank have the brightest economists and the lead in advising poor countries on how to break out of poverty but the problem is development economics 146 Development economics needs the reform not the IMF He also notes that IMF loan conditions should be paired with other reforms e g trade reform in developed nations debt cancellation and increased financial assistance for investments in basic infrastructure 146 IMF loan conditions cannot stand alone and produce change they need to be partnered with other reforms or other conditions as applicable 11 US influence and voting reform Edit The scholarly consensus is that IMF decision making is not simply technocratic but also guided by political and economic concerns 156 The United States is the IMF s most powerful member and its influence reaches even into decision making concerning individual loan agreements 157 The United States has historically been openly opposed to losing what Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew described in 2015 as its leadership role at the IMF and the United States ability to shape international norms and practices 158 Emerging markets were not well represented for most of the IMF s history Despite being the most populous country China s vote share was the sixth largest Brazil s vote share was smaller than Belgium s 159 Reforms to give more powers to emerging economies were agreed by the G20 in 2010 The reforms could not pass however until they were ratified by the US Congress 160 161 162 since 85 of the Fund s voting power was required for the reforms to take effect 163 and the Americans held more than 16 of voting power at the time 2 After repeated criticism 164 165 the United States finally ratified the voting reforms at the end of 2015 166 The OECD countries maintained their overwhelming majority of voting share and the United States in particular retained its share at over 16 167 The criticism of the American and European dominated IMF has led to what some consider disenfranchising the world from the governance of the IMF Raul Prebisch the founding secretary general of the UN Conference on Trade and Development UNCTAD wrote that one of the conspicuous deficiencies of the general economic theory from the point of view of the periphery is its false sense of universality 168 Support of dictatorships Edit The role of the Bretton Woods institutions has been controversial since the late Cold War because of claims that the IMF policy makers supported military dictatorships friendly to American and European corporations but also other anti communist and Communist regimes such as Mobutu s Zaire and Ceaușescu s Romania respectively Critics also claim that the IMF is generally apathetic or hostile to human rights and labour rights The controversy has helped spark the anti globalization movement An example of IMF s support for a dictatorship was its ongoing support for Mobutu s rule in Zaire although its own envoy Erwin Blumenthal provided a sobering report about the entrenched corruption and embezzlement and the inability of the country to pay back any loans 169 Arguments in favour of the IMF say that economic stability is a precursor to democracy however critics highlight various examples in which democratised countries fell after receiving IMF loans 170 A 2017 study found no evidence of IMF lending programs undermining democracy in borrowing countries 171 To the contrary it found evidence for modest but definitively positive conditional differences in the democracy scores of participating and non participating countries 171 On 28 June 2021 the IMF approved a US 1 billion loan to the Ugandan government despite protests from Ugandans who protested in Washington London and South Africa 172 173 Impact on access to food Edit A number of civil society organisations 174 have criticised the IMF s policies for their impact on access to food particularly in developing countries In October 2008 former United States president Bill Clinton delivered a speech to the United Nations on World Food Day criticising the World Bank and IMF for their policies on food and agriculture We need the World Bank the IMF all the big foundations and all the governments to admit that for 30 years we all blew it including me when I was president We were wrong to believe that food was like some other product in international trade and we all have to go back to a more responsible and sustainable form of agriculture Former U S president Bill Clinton Speech at United Nations World Food Day October 16 2008 175 The FPIF remarked that there is a recurring pattern the destabilization of peasant producers by a one two punch of IMF World Bank structural adjustment programs that gutted government investment in the countryside followed by the massive influx of subsidized U S and European Union agricultural imports after the WTO s Agreement on Agriculture pried open markets 176 Impact on public health Edit A 2009 study concluded that the strict conditions resulted in thousands of deaths in Eastern Europe by tuberculosis as public health care had to be weakened In the 21 countries to which the IMF had given loans tuberculosis deaths rose by 16 6 177 A 2017 systematic review on studies conducted on the impact that Structural adjustment programs have on child and maternal health found that these programs have a detrimental effect on maternal and child health among other adverse effects 178 In 2009 a book by Rick Rowden titled The Deadly Ideas of Neoliberalism How the IMF has Undermined Public Health and the Fight Against AIDS claimed that the IMF s monetarist approach towards prioritising price stability low inflation and fiscal restraint low budget deficits was unnecessarily restrictive and has prevented developing countries from scaling up long term investment in public health infrastructure The book claimed the consequences have been chronically underfunded public health systems leading to demoralising working conditions that have fuelled a brain drain of medical personnel all of which has undermined public health and the fight against HIV AIDS in developing countries 179 In 2016 the IMF s research department published a report titled Neoliberalism Oversold which while praising some aspects of the neoliberal agenda claims that the organisation has been overselling fiscal austerity policies and financial deregulation which they claim has exacerbated both financial crises and economic inequality around the world 180 181 182 Impact on environment Edit IMF policies have been repeatedly criticised for making it difficult for indebted countries to say no to environmentally harmful projects that nevertheless generate revenues such as oil coal and forest destroying lumber and agriculture projects Ecuador for example had to defy IMF advice repeatedly to pursue the protection of its rainforests though paradoxically this need was cited in the IMF argument to provide support to Ecuador The IMF acknowledged this paradox in the 2010 report that proposed the IMF Green Fund a mechanism to issue special drawing rights directly to pay for climate harm prevention and potentially other ecological protection as pursued generally by other environmental finance 183 While the response to these moves was generally positive 184 possibly because ecological protection and energy and infrastructure transformation are more politically neutral than pressures to change social policy some experts who voiced concern that the IMF was not representative and that the IMF proposals to generate only US 200 billion a year by 2020 with the SDRs as seed funds did not go far enough to undo the general incentive to pursue destructive projects inherent in the world commodity trading and banking systems criticisms often levelled at the World Trade Organization and large global banking institutions In the context of the European debt crisis some observers who noted that when Spain and California two troubled economies citation needed within respectively the European Union and the United States and also Germany the primary and politically most fragile supporter of a euro currency bailout would benefit from IMF recognition of their leadership in green technology and directly from Green Fund generated demand for their exports which could also improve their credit ratings citation needed IMF and globalization EditGlobalization encompasses three institutions global financial markets and transnational companies national governments linked to each other in economic and military alliances led by the United States and rising global governments such as World Trade Organization WTO IMF and World Bank 185 Charles Derber argues in his book People Before Profit These interacting institutions create a new global power system where sovereignty is globalized taking power and constitutional authority away from nations and giving it to global markets and international bodies 185 Titus Alexander argues that this system institutionalises global inequality between western countries and the Majority World in a form of global apartheid in which the IMF is a key pillar 186 The establishment of globalised economic institutions has been both a symptom of and a stimulus for globalisation The development of the World Bank the IMF regional development banks such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development EBRD and multilateral trade institutions such as the WTO signals a move away from the dominance of the state as the primary actor analysed in international affairs Globalization has thus been transformative in terms of limiting of state sovereignty over the economy 187 Impact on gender equality Edit The IMF says they support women s empowerment and tries to promote their rights in countries with a significant gender gap 188 Scandals EditManaging Director Lagarde 2011 2019 was convicted of giving preferential treatment to businessman turned politician Bernard Tapie as he pursued a legal challenge against the French government At the time Lagarde was the French economic minister 189 Within hours of her conviction in which she escaped any punishment the fund s 24 member executive board put to rest any speculation that she might have to resign praising her outstanding leadership and the wide respect she commands around the world 190 Former IMF Managing Director Rodrigo Rato was arrested in 2015 for alleged fraud embezzlement and money laundering 191 192 In 2017 the Audiencia Nacional found Rato guilty of embezzlement and sentenced him to 41 2 years imprisonment 193 In 2018 the sentence was confirmed by the Supreme Court of Spain 194 Alternatives EditIn March 2011 the Ministers of Economy and Finance of the African Union proposed to establish an African Monetary Fund 195 At the 6th BRICS summit in July 2014 the BRICS nations Brazil Russia India China and South Africa announced the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement CRA with an initial size of US 100 billion a framework to provide liquidity through currency swaps in response to actual or potential short term balance of payments pressures 196 In 2014 the China led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank was established 158 In the media EditLife and Debt a documentary film deals with the IMF s policies influence on Jamaica and its economy from a critical point of view Debtocracy a 2011 independent Greek documentary film also criticises the IMF Portuguese musician Jose Mario Branco s 1982 album FMI is inspired by the IMF s intervention in Portugal through monitored stabilisation programs in 1977 78 In the 2015 film Our Brand Is Crisis the IMF is mentioned as a point of political contention where the Bolivian population fears its electoral interference 197 See also Edit Economy portal Money portal World portalBank for International Settlements International financial institution owned by central banks Conditionality Conditions imposed on international benefits Currency crisis When a country s central bank lacks the foreign reserves to maintain a fixed exchange rate Globalization Spread of world views products ideas capital and labour Group of Ten Developed countries that back the IMF Group of Thirty Consultative group on international economic and monetary affairs International financial institutions Institutions spanning several countries List of IMF people New Development Bank Multilateral development bank of the BRICS states Smithsonian Agreement 1971 multinational concord on the convertibility of the US dollar The Swiss constituency Voting group in the IMF and WB World Bank residual model Model to measure illicit financial flowsNotes Edita There is no worldwide consensus on the status of the Republic of Kosovo it is recognised as independent by 101 countries while others consider it an autonomous province of Serbia See International recognition of Kosovo References EditFootnotes Edit a b c About the IMF IMF org Retrieved 14 October 2012 a b c IMF Members Quotas and Voting Power and IMF Board of Governors IMF 17 October 2020 Boughton 2001 p 7 n 5 First Deputy Managing Director Geoffrey Okamoto to Leave IMF Gita Gopinath to Be IMF s New First Deputy Managing Director IMF org IMF Managing Director Names Pierre Olivier Gourinchas as IMF Economic Counsellor and Head of Research Department IMF org Factsheet The IMF and the World Bank IMF org 21 September 2015 Archived from the original on 3 June 2004 Retrieved 1 December 2015 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint bot original URL status unknown link About the IMF Overview IMF org Retrieved 1 August 2017 IMF Executive Board Approves FY 2022 FY 2024 Medium Term Budget IMF org 27 May 2021 Retrieved 9 April 2022 a b The IMF at a Glance IMF org Retrieved 15 December 2016 Broughton James March 2002 Why White Not Keynes Inventint the Postwar International Monetary System PDF IMF org Archived PDF from the original on 3 April 2003 a b c d Lipscy Phillip Y 2015 Explaining Institutional Change Policy Areas Outside Options and the Bretton Woods Institutions American Journal of Political Science 59 2 341 356 doi 10 1111 ajps 12130 Schlefer Jonathan 10 April 2012 There is No Invisible Hand Harvard Business Review Harvard Business Publishing via hbr org Escobar Arturo 1980 Power and Visibility Development and the Invention and Management of the Third World Cultural Anthropology 3 4 428 443 doi 10 1525 can 1988 3 4 02a00060 Articles of Agreement International Monetary Fund PDF IMF org 2011 Archived PDF from the original on 4 November 2011 Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund IMF org 2016 IMF Quotas IMF org Retrieved 4 February 2020 Crutsinger Martin 25 September 2019 Economist who grew up in communist Bulgaria is new IMF chief APNews com Associated Press Retrieved 18 June 2020 First Deputy Managing Director Geoffrey Okamoto to Leave IMF Gita Gopinath to Be IMF s New First Deputy Managing Director IMF Retrieved 4 February 2022 IMF Managing Director Names Pierre Olivier Gourinchas as IMF Economic Counsellor and Head of Research Department IMF Retrieved 4 February 2022 About the IMF International Monetary Fund Retrieved 12 March 2012 a b Isard Peter 2005 Globalization and the International Financial System What s Wrong and What Can be Done New York Cambridge University Press a b c d e f g h Jensen Nathan April 2004 Crisis Conditions and Capital The Effect of the IMF on Direct Foreign Investment Journal of Conflict Resolution 48 2 194 210 doi 10 1177 0022002703262860 S2CID 154419320 a b c d e f g h Chorev Nistan Sarah Babb 2009 The crisis of neoliberalism and the future of international institutions a comparison of the IMF and the WTO Theory and Society 38 5 459 484 doi 10 1007 s11186 009 9093 5 S2CID 55564202 Lastra Rosa Maria 2000 The International Monetary Fund in Historical Perspective Journal of Economic Law 3 3 507 523 doi 10 1093 jiel 3 3 507 Fischer Stanley March 2003 Financial Crises and Reform of the International Financial System PDF Review of World Economics 139 1 37 doi 10 1007 BF02659606 Archived PDF from the original on 6 July 2017 Factsheet IMF Lending About the IMF International Monetary Fund Retrieved 8 April 2012 a b c Bossone Biagio IMF Surveillance A Case Study on IMF Governance PDF Independent Office of the International Monetary Fund Archived from the original PDF on 4 September 2011 Factsheet IMF Surveillance About the IMF International Monetary Fund Vinokurov Evgeny Artem Levenkov and Gennady Vasiliev Global Financial Safety Net in Eurasia Accessibility of Macroeconomic Stabilization Financing in Armenia Belarus Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan WP 20 2 2020 Fiscal Affairs Department Strategy Policy and Review Department 5 August 2011 Cottarelli Carlo Moghadam Reza eds Modernizing the Framework for Fiscal Policy and Public Debt Sustainability Analysis PDF International Monetary Fund Archived PDF from the original on 16 October 2011 Chowdhury Anis Islam Iyanatul 9 November 2010 Is there an optimal debt to GDP ratio Centre for Economic Policy Research Archived from the original on 15 February 2022 Retrieved 29 August 2020 Press Release Macao SAR Begins Participation in the IMF s General Data Dissemination System Breen Michael Doak Elliott 2021 The IMF as a global monitor surveillance information and financial markets Review of International Political Economy 1 25 doi 10 1080 09692290 2021 2004441 ISSN 0969 2290 S2CID 244505303 Guimaraes Bernardo Iazdi Oz 2015 IMF conditionalities liquidity provision and incentives for fiscal adjustment International Tax and Public Finance 22 5 705 722 doi 10 1007 s10797 014 9329 9 S2CID 56183488 a b c Buira Ariel August 2003 An Analysis of IMF Conditionality G 24 Discussion Papers United Nations Conference on Trade and Development 22 Factsheet IMF Conditionality About the IMF International Monetary Fund Retrieved 18 March 2012 a b c d Khan Mohsin S Sunil Sharm 24 September 2001 IMF Conditionality and Country Ownership of Programs PDF IMF Institute Archived PDF from the original on 22 November 2003 a b Jensen Nathan 2004 Crisis Conditions and Capital The Effect of the International Monetary Fund on Foreign Direct Investment Journal of Conflict Resolution 48 2 194 210 doi 10 1177 0022002703262860 S2CID 154419320 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bailout agreement reached by Cyprus and troika Ekathimerini Greece 25 March 2013 Retrieved 25 March 2013 a b Sovereign Debt Restructuring Recent Developments and Implications for the Fund s Legal and Policy Framework PDF imf org 26 April 2013 Archived PDF from the original on 12 June 2013 a b IMF Executive Board Discusses Sovereign Debt Restructuring Recent Developments and Implications for the Fund s Legal and Policy Framework IMF Public Information Notice a b online IMF Survey IMF Survey IMF Launches Discussion of Sovereign Debt Restructuring IMF a b Stevis Matina 24 May 2013 IMF Searches Soul Blames Europe The Wall Street Journal Fiscal Monitor Taxing Times Oct 2013 p 49 PDF Archived PDF from the original on 15 October 2013 IMF Fiscal Affairs and Income Inequality 23 Jan 2014 PDF Archived PDF from the original on 16 March 2014 Ukraine to get 15bn as Russia hit by downgrades Archived from the original on 10 January 2022 Windfall for hedge funds and Russian banks as IMF rescues Ukraine Archived from the original on 10 January 2022 IMF warns world growth slowest since financial crisis BBC News 15 October 2019 Retrieved 22 November 2020 a b IMF Economy losing momentum amid virus second wave BBC News 19 November 2020 Retrieved 22 November 2020 IMF says it s ready to mobilize its 1 trillion lending capacity to fight coronavirus CNBC 16 March 2020 IMF provides 50bn to fight coronavirus outbreak BBC 5 March 2020 Iran asks IMF for 5bn emergency funding to fight coronavirus Al Jazeera Media Network 12 March 2020 United Kingdom Boosts IMF s Catastrophe Relief Fund with 150 million No Press release 20 84 INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND 11 March 2020 Dozens of poorer nations seek IMF help amid coronavirus crisis Guardian News amp Media Limited 27 March 2020 Global Covid 19 cases near 2 million as Putin warns Russia faces extraordinary crisis Guardian News amp Media Limited 14 April 2020 Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund Article VIII General Obligations of MembersSection 2 Avoidance of restrictions on current payments Section 3 Avoidance of discriminatory currency practices Section 4 Convertibility of foreign held balances IMF Country Information Republic of Kosovo is now officially a member of the IMF and the World Bank The Kosovo Times 29 June 2009 Archived from the original on 2 July 2009 Retrieved 29 June 2009 Kosovo signed the Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund IMF and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development the World Bank on behalf of Kosovo at the State Department in Washington Kosovo Becomes the International Monetary Fund s 186th Member Press release International Monetary Fund 29 June 2009 Retrieved 29 June 2009 Member Countries World Bank IBRD IDA The World Bank Retrieved 22 April 2021 Brazil calls for Cuba to be allowed into IMF Caribbean Net News 27 April 2009 Retrieved 7 May 2009 Cuba was a member of the IMF until 1964 when it left under revolutionary leader Fidel 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Reflections on Leadership in Africa Forty Years After Independence PDF houseofknowledge org uk Archived PDF from the original on 15 May 2014 Retrieved 14 May 2014 RBI Guv Raghuram Rajan blasts IMF for being soft on easy money policies of West 19 October 2015 Archived from the original on 22 October 2015 Choudhury Suvashree 19 October 2015 RBI chief Rajan urges IMF to act against extreme policies Reuters RBI s Raghuram Rajan urges IMF to act against extreme policies 19 October 2015 Zambia s looming debt crisis is a warning for the rest of Africa The Economist Retrieved 19 September 2018 a b c d e f g Sachs Jeffrey 2005 The End of Poverty New York The Penguin Press ISBN 9781594200458 Boughton James M Mourmouras Alex 2004 Whose programme is it Policy ownership and conditional lending The IMF and its Critics Cambridge University Press pp 225 253 doi 10 1017 cbo9780511493362 010 ISBN 9780511493362 Stiglitz Joseph E 2006 Making Globalization Work Great Britain Allen Lane an imprint of the 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December 2015 Retrieved 25 July 2017 Weisbrot Mark Johnston Jake 2016 Voting Share Reform at the IMF Will it Make a Difference PDF Washington DC Center for Economic and Policy Research Archived PDF from the original on 28 May 2016 Retrieved 25 July 2017 Dosman J Edgar 2008 The Life and Times of Raul Prebisch 1901 1986 McGill Queen University Press Montreal pp 248 249 David van Reybrouck 2012 Congo The Epic History of a People HarperCollins p 374ff ISBN 978 0 06 220011 2 IMF support to dictatorships Committee for the Abolition of the Third World Debt World Bank Archived from the original on 12 October 2007 Retrieved 21 September 2007 a b Nelson Stephen C Wallace Geoffrey P R 1 December 2017 Are IMF lending programs good or bad for democracy The Review of International Organizations 12 4 523 558 doi 10 1007 s11558 016 9250 3 ISSN 1559 7431 S2CID 85506864 IMF approves ECS arrangement for Uganda IMF loan to Uganda should be canceled Oxfam Death on the Doorstep of the Summit Archived 7 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine August 2002 Bill Clinton Speech United Nations World Food Day Archived 5 June 2011 at archive today 13 October 2008 Destroying African Agriculture Foreign Policy In Focus 3 June 2008 Retrieved 22 August 2018 At the time of decolonization in the 1960s Africa was not just self sufficient in food but was actually a net food exporter its exports averaging 1 3 million tons a year between 1966 70 Today the continent imports 25 of its food with almost every country being a net food importer International Monetary Fund Programs and Tuberculosis Outcomes in Post Communist Countries Archived 20 September 2008 at the Wayback Machine PLoS Medicine The study has not been independently verified nor have the authors published parts of their supporting data Retrieved 29 July 2008 Stubbs Thomas December 2017 Structural adjustment programmes adversely affect vulnerable populations A systematic narrative review of their effect on child and maternal health Researchgate 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Archived from the original on 18 July 2014 Retrieved 15 July 2014 Jhunjhunwala Udita 8 January 2016 Film review Our Brand is Crisis livemint com Retrieved 7 March 2019 Bibliography Edit Lipscy Phillip 2015 Explaining Institutional Change Policy Areas Outside Options and the BrettonWoods Institutions PDF American Journal of Political Science 59 2 341 356 CiteSeerX 10 1 1 595 6890 doi 10 1111 ajps 12130 Archived from the original PDF on 12 April 2019 Blomberg Brock Broz J Lawrence 17 November 2006 The Political Economy of IMF Voting Power PDF 2006 International Political Economy Society Meeting IPES Niehaus Center for Globalization amp Governance Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs Archived from the original PDF on 10 July 2012 Boughton James M 2001 Silent Revolution The International Monetary Fund 1979 1989 Washington DC International Monetary Fund ISBN 978 1 55775 971 9 2012 Tearing Down Walls The International Monetary Fund 1990 1999 Washington DC IMF ISBN 978 1 61635 084 0 Breen Michael 2013 The Politics of IMF Lending International Political Economy Series Basingstoke and New York Palgrave Macmillan ISBN 978 1 137 26380 3 Broz J Lawrence Hawes Brewster Michael 2006 US domestic politics and International Monetary Fund policy PDF In Darren G Hawkins et al eds Delegation and Agency in International Organizations pp 77 106 Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions Cambridge and New York Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 86209 7 Archived PDF from the original on 10 July 2015 Oatley Thomas Yackee Jason 2004 American Interests and IMF Lending PDF International Politics 41 3 415 429 doi 10 1057 palgrave ip 8800085 S2CID 6934460 Archived from the original PDF on 28 May 2014 Henke Holger 2000 Between Self determination and Dependency Jamaica s Foreign Relations 1972 1989 Kingston Jamaica The United States of the West Indies Press Woods Ngaire 2003 The United States and the International Financial Institutions Power and Influence Within the World Bank and the IMF In Rosemary Foot S Neil MacFarlane and Michael Mastanduno eds US Hegemony and International Organizations pp 92 114 Oxford and New York Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 926142 0 Further reading EditBordo M D 1993 Bordo M D Eichengreen Barry eds The Bretton Woods International Monetary System A Historical Overview A Retrospective on the Bretton Woods System London doi 10 7208 chicago 9780226066905 001 0001 ISBN 9780226065878 Copelovitch Mark 2010 The International Monetary Fund in the Global Economy Banks Bonds and Bailouts Cambridge University Press deVries Margaret Garritsen The IMF in a Changing World 1945 85 International Monetary Fund 1986 James H International Monetary Cooperation since Bretton Woods Oxford 1996 Joicey N and Pickford S The International Monetary Fund and Global Economic Cooperation in Nicholas Bayne and Stephen Woolcock The New Economic Diplomacy Decision Making and Negotiation in International Relations Ashgate Publishing 2011 Keynes J M The Collected Writings Vol XXVI Activities 1941 1946 Shaping the Post War World Bretton Woods and Reparations Cambridge 1980 Moschella M Governing Risk The IMF and Global Financial Crises Palgrave Macmillan 2010 Skidelsky R John Maynard Keynes Fighting for Britain London 2000 Truman E Strengthening IMF Surveillance A Comprehensive Proposal Policy Brief 10 29 Peterson Institute for International Economics 2010 Weiss Martin A The International Monetary Fund Archived 1 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine Washington DC Congressional Research Service 24 May 2018 Woods N The Globalizers The IMF the World Bank and Their Borrowers Ithaca 2006 Woods Ngaire and Lombardi Domenico 2006 Uneven Patterns of Governance How Developing Countries are Represented in the IMF Review of International Political Economy Volume 13 Number 3 480 515 External links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to IMFInternational Monetary Fund Wikiquote has quotations related to International Monetary Fund Official website Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title International Monetary Fund amp oldid 1128355574, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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