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 December 27, 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 SDR 477
billion (about US$667 billion).[9] The IMF is
regarded as the global lender of last
resort.
 International Monetary Fund

Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Abbreviation IMF

Formation 27 December 1945

Type International financial

institution

Purpose Promote 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]

Headquarters 700 19th Street NW,

Washington, D.C., U.S.

Coordinates 38°53′56″N
77°2′39″W (https://ge
 ohack.toolforge.org/g
eohack.php?pagena
me=International_Mo
netary_Fund&params
=38_53_56_N_77_2_3
9_W_)

Region Worldwide

Membership 190 countries (189

UN countries and
Kosovo)[2]

Official language English[3]

Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva

First Deputy Gita Gopinath[4]

Managing Director

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]

Website IMF.org (https://www.

imf.org/)

Through the fund and other activities such

as the gathering of statistics and analysis,
the 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 cooperation,
international trade, high employment,
exchange-rate stability, sustainable
economic growth, and make resources
available to member countries in financial
difficulty.[15] IMF funds come from two
major sources: quotas and loans. Quotas,
which are pooled funds from 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 the 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.[22]

Upon the founding of the IMF, its three

primary functions were:

to oversee the fixed exchange rate

arrangements between countries,[23]
thus helping national governments
manage their exchange rates and
allowing these governments to prioritize
economic growth,[24] and
to provide short-term capital to aid the
balance of payments[23] 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[25] 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.[23]
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.[26] 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,[23] which was established in
the 1950s.[24] 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.[27]

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.[28] This activity is known as
surveillance and facilitates international
co-operation.[29] 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.[28] 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.[28] 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.[30] 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%.[31] Indeed, it was
at this number that the Greek economy
melted down in 2010.[32]
 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).[33]

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 IMF members

also contribute statistical data to the
systems:

Palestinian Authority – GDDS

Hong Kong – SDDS
 Macau – GDDS[34]
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".[35]
World Economic Outlook

World Economic Outlook is a survey,

published twice a year, by International
Monetary Fund staff, which analyzes the
global economy in the near and medium
term.[36]

Conditionality of loans

IMF conditionality is a set of policies or

conditions that the IMF requires in
exchange for financial resources.[23] 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.[37] If the conditions are not
met, the funds are withheld.[23][38] 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".[24]
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

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.[39][40]
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.[40]

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
the country will be able to rectify its
macroeconomic and structural
imbalances.[40] 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.[38]
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.[41] 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.[42]
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.[43] 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 act as the United
States government had during the New
Deal to the great recession of the
1930s.[43]

The IMF formally came into existence on

27 December 1945, when the first 29
countries ratified its Articles of
Agreement.[44] By the end of 1946 the IMF
had grown to 39 members.[45] On 1 March
1947, the IMF began its financial
operations,[46] and on 8 May France
became the first country to borrow from
it.[45]

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.[24] 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.[42]

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.[42]
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.[47]

In the mid-1980s, the IMF shifted its

narrow focus from currency stabilization
to a broader focus of promoting market-
liberalizing reforms through structural
adjustment programs.[48] This shift
occurred without a formal renegotiation of
the organization's charter or operational
guidelines.[48] The Ronald Reagan
administration, in particular Treasury
Secretary James Baker, his assistant
secretary David Mulford and deputy
assistant secretary Charles Dallara,
pressured the IMF to attach market-liberal
reforms to the organization's conditional
loans.[48]

During the 20th century, the IMF shifted its

position on capital controls. Whereas the
IMF permitted capital controls at its
founding and throughout the 1970s, IMF
staff increasingly favored free capital
movement from 1980s onwards.[49] This
shift happened in the aftermath of an
emerging consensus in economics on the
desirability of free capital movement,
retirement of IMF staff hired in the 1940s
and 1950s, and the recruitment of staff
exposed to new thinking in economics.[49]

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).[50] However, by
the mid-2000s, IMF lending was at its
lowest share of world GDP since the
1970s.[51]

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.[52] 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.[53]

A second bailout package of more than

€100 billion was agreed upon 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[54] 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.[53][55]

As of January 2012, the largest borrowers

from the IMF in order were Greece,
Portugal, Ireland, Romania, and Ukraine.[56]

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.[57][58] No insured
deposit of €100k or less were to be
affected under the terms of a novel bail-in
scheme.[59][60]

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".[61] The paper, which was
discussed by the board on 20 May,[62]
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,[63] as was a
deconstruction by Matina Stevis of The
Wall Street Journal.[64]

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%.[65]

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."[66]

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.[67][68]
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%.[69][70]

In March 2020, Kristalina Georgieva

announced that the IMF stood ready to
mobilize $1 trillion as its response to the
COVID-19 pandemic.[71] This was in
addition to the $50 billion fund it had
announced two weeks earlier,[72] of which
$5 billion had already been requested by
Iran.[73] One day earlier on 11 March, the
UK called to pledge £150 million to the
IMF catastrophe relief fund.[74] It came to
light on 27 March that "more than 80 poor
and middle-income countries" had sought
a bailout due to the coronavirus.[75]

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.[76]
Member countries

IMF member states

IMF member states not accepting the obligations of
Article VIII, Sections 2, 3, and 4[77]

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.[78] 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.[79][80] 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.[81]

Former members are Cuba (which left in

1964),[82] and Taiwan, which was ejected
from the IMF[83] in 1980 after losing the
support of the then United States
President Jimmy Carter and was replaced
by the People's Republic of China.[84]
However, "Taiwan Province of China" is still
listed in the official IMF indices.[85]
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.[86][87]

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.[88]
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.[24]
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.[89]

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.[90]

Personnel

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.[91]

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.[92] The Development
Committee has 25 members and advises
on critical development issues and on
financial resources required to promote
economic development in developing
countries.

The Board of Governors reports directly to

the managing director of the IMF,
Kristalina Georgieva.[92]

Executive Board

24 Executive Directors make up the

executive board. The executive directors
represent all 189 member countries in a
geographically based roster.[93] Countries
with large economies have their own
executive director, but most countries are
grouped in constituencies representing
four or more countries.[91]

Following the 2008 Amendment on Voice

and Participation which came into effect in
March 2011,[94] seven countries each
appoint an executive director: the United
States, Japan, China, Germany, France, the
United Kingdom, and Saudi Arabia.[93] The
remaining 17 Directors represent
constituencies consisting of 2 to 23
countries. This Board usually meets
several times each week.[95] The Board
membership and constituency is
scheduled for periodic review every eight
years.[96]
List of Executive Directors of the IMF, as of
February 2019
 Number of
Country with
Country Region Member(s) Director
Most Votes
Represented

United
United States 1 Mark Rosen United States
States

Masaaki
Japan Japan 1 Japan
Kaizuka

China China 1 Jin Zhongxia China

Benelux, Israel, and Anthony De

Belgium 15 Netherlands
Eastern Europe Lannoy

Germany Germany 1 Steffen Meyer Germany

Spain and Central

Colombia 8 Leonardo Villar Spain
America

Indonesia Southeast Asia 13 Juda Agung Indonesia

Mediterranean Domenico G.
Italy 6 Italy
Europe Fanizza

Herve de
France France 1 France
Villeroche

United
United Kingdom 1 Shona E. Riach United Kingdom
Kingdom

Australia Far East 15 Nigel Ray South Korea

North Atlantic and Louise

Canada 12 Canada
the Caribbean Levonian

Thomas
Sweden Northern Europe 8 Sweden
Östros

Turkey Central Europe 8 Raci Kaya Turkey

Northern South Alexandre

Brazil 11 Brazil
America Tombini

India Indian subcontinent 4 Surjit Bhalla India

Dumisani
South Africa Africa 1 23 South Africa
Mahlinza
 Number of
Country with
Country Region Member(s) Director
Most Votes
Represented

Switzerland, Poland, Paul

Switzerland 9 Switzerland
and the Near East Inderbinen

Aleksei V.
Russia Russia 2 Russia
Mozhin

Iran and the Middle

Iran 8 Jafar Mojarrad Iran
East

North Africa and the Hazem United Arab

Egypt 11
Middle East Beblawi Emirates

Maher
Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia 1 Saudi Arabia
Mouminah

Mohamed- Democratic
Mauritania Africa 2 23 Lemine Republic of the
Raghani Congo

Southern South Gabriel

Argentina 6 Argentina
America Lopetegui

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.[97] 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.[98][99] In August
2019, the International Monetary Fund has
removed the age limit which is 65 or over
for its managing director position.[100]

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.[98][101]
List of Managing Directors
Term Dates Name Citizenship Background

Politician, Economist, Lawyer,

6 May 1946 – 5
1 Camille Gutt Belgium Economics Minister, Finance
May 1951
Minister

3 August 1951 – Economist, Lawyer, Central

2 Ivar Rooth Sweden
3 October 1956 Banker

21 November
Economist, Lawyer, Academic,
3 1956 – 5 May Per Jacobsson Sweden
League of Nations, BIS
1963

1 September
Pierre-Paul Lawyer, Businessman, Civil
4 1963 – 31 France
Schweitzer Servant, Central Banker
August 1973

1 September Politician, Economist, Academic,

Johan
5 1973 – 18 June Netherlands Finance Minister, Deputy Prime
Witteveen
1978 Minister, CPB

18 June 1978 – Jacques de Businessman, Civil Servant,

6 France
15 January 1987 Larosière Central Banker

16 January 1987
Michel Economist, Civil Servant, Central
7 – 14 February France
Camdessus Banker
2000

1 May 2000 – 4 Politician, Economist, Civil

8 Horst Köhler Germany
March 2004 Servant, EBRD, President

Politician, Businessman,
7 June 2004 – 31
9 Rodrigo Rato Spain Economics Minister, Finance
October 2007
Minister, Deputy Prime Minister

Politician, Economist, Lawyer,

1 November 2007 Dominique
10 France Businessman, Economics
– 18 May 2011 Strauss-Kahn
Minister, Finance Minister
Term Dates Name Citizenship Background

5 July 2011 – 12 Christine Politician, Lawyer, Finance

11 France
September 2019 Lagarde Minister

1 October 2019 – Kristalina

12 Bulgaria Politician, Economist
present Georgieva

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.[102] On 28 June 2011 Christine
Lagarde was confirmed as managing
director of the IMF for a five-year term
starting on 5 July 2011.[103][104] 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.[105]

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.[106] Together,
the managing director and their First
Deputy lead the senior management of the
IMF (https://www.imf.org/en/About/senior
-officials) . Like the managing director, the
First Deputy traditionally serves a five-year
term.
List of First Deputy Managing Directors
No. Dates Name Citizenship Background

9 February 1949 – 24 Andrew Banker, Senior U.S. Treasury

1 United States
January 1952 Overby Official

16 March 1953 – 31 Merle

2 United States U.S. Foreign Service Officer
October 1962 Cochran

1 November 1962 – Frank

3 United States Economist, Civil Servant
28 February 1974 Southard

1 March 1974 – 31
4 William Dale United States Civil Servant
May 1984

1 June 1984 – 31 Economist, White House

5 Richard Erb United States
August 1994 Official

1 September 1994 – Stanley Israel Economist, Central Banker,

6
31 August 2001 Fischer United States Banker

1 September 2001 – Anne

7 United States Economist
31 August 2006 Kreuger

17 July 2006 – 11
8 John Lipsky United States Economist
November 2011

1 September 2011 – Economist, Senior U.S. Treasury

9 David Lipton United States
28 February 2020 Official

20 March 2020 – 20 Geoffrey Senior U.S. Treasury Official,

10 United States
January 2022 Okamoto Bank Consultant

Professor at Harvard
21 January 2022 – Gita India University's Economics
11
present Gopinath United States 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.[107]
List of Chief Economists
Term Dates Name Citizenship

1 1946–1958 Edward Bernstein[108] United States

2 1958–1980 Jacques Polak Netherlands

3 1980–1987 William Hood[109][110] Canada

4 1987–1991 Jacob Frenkel[111] Israel

5 August 1991 – 29 June 2001 Michael Mussa[112] United States

6 August 2001 – September 2003 Kenneth Rogoff[113] United States

7 September 2003 – January 2007 Raghuram Rajan[114] India

United Kingdom
8 March 2007 – 31 August 2008 Simon Johnson[115]
United States

1 September 2008 – 8 September

9 Olivier Blanchard[116] France
2015

8 September 2015 – 31 December

10 Maurice Obstfeld[117] United States
2018

11 1 January 2019 – 21 January 2022 Gita Gopinath[118] United States

Pierre-Olivier
12 24 January 2022 – present France
Gourinchas[119]

IMF staff

IMF staff have considerable autonomy and

are known to shape IMF policy. According
to Jeffrey Chwieroth, "It is the staff
members who conduct the bulk of the
IMF's tasks; they formulate policy
proposals for consideration by member
states, exercise surveillance, carry out loan
negotiations and design the programs, and
collect and systematize detailed
information."[120] Most IMF staff are
economists.[121] According to a 1968
study, nearly 60% of staff were from
English-speaking developed countries.[122]
By 2004, between 40-50% of staff were
from English-speaking developed
countries.[122]

A 1996 study found that 90% of new staff

with a PhD obtained them from
universities in the United States or
Canada.[122] A 1999 study found that none
of the new staff with a PhD obtained their
PhD in the Global South.[122]

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,[123] plus one additional
vote for each special drawing right (SDR)
of 100,000 of a member country's
quota.[124] 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.[124]
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]
Quota
No. % of
IMF Member millions % of
Rank Governor Alternate of total
country of the
votes votes
XDR total

1 United States 82,994.2 17.43 Andy Baukol Vacant 831,401 16.50

Haruhiko
2 Japan 30,820.5 6.47 Shunichi Suzuki 309,664 6.14
Kuroda

3 China 30,482.9 6.40 Gang Yi Yulu Chen 306,288 6.08

Christian
4 Germany 26,634.4 5.59 Joachim Nagel 267,803 5.31
Lindner

François
5 France 20,155.1 4.23 Bruno Le Maire Villeroy de 203,010 4.03
Galhau

Andrew
6 United Kingdom 20,155.1 4.23 Jeremy Hunt MP 203,010 4.03
Bailey

Ignazio
7 Italy 15,070.0 3.16 Daniele Franco 152,159 3.02
Visco

Nirmala Shaktikanta
8 India 13,114.4 2.75 132,603 2.63
Sitharaman Das

Elvira S.
9 Russia 12,903.7 2.71 Anton Siluanov 130,496 2.59
Nabiullina

Roberto
10 Brazil 11,042.0 2.32 Fernando Haddad Campos 111,879 2.22
Neto

Tiff
11 Canada 11,023.9 2.31 Chrystia Freeland 111,698 2.22
Macklem

Mohammed Al- Fahad A.

12 Saudi Arabia 9,992.6 2.10 101,385 2.01
Jadaan Almubarak

13 Spain 9,535.5 2.00 Nadia Calviño Pablo 96,814 1.92

Hernández
 Quota
No. % of
IMF Member millions % of
Rank Governor Alternate of total
country of the
votes votes
XDR total
de Cos

Victoria
Rogelio Eduardo
14 Mexico 8,912.7 1.87 Rodríguez 90,586 1.80
Ramirez de la O
Ceja

Christiaan
15 Netherlands 8,736.5 1.83 Klaas Knot 88,824 1.76
Rebergen

Rhee
16 South Korea 8,582.7 1.80 Choo Kyung-ho Chang- 87,286 1.73
yong

Jim Chalmers, Steven

17 Australia 6,572.4 1.38 67,183 1.33
M.P. Kennedy

Vincent
18 Belgium 6,410.7 1.35 Pierre Wunsch Van 65,566 1.30
Peteghem

19 Switzerland 5,771.1 1.21 Thomas Jordan Ueli Maurer 59,170 1.17

Şahap
20 Turkey 4,658.6 0.98 Nureddin Nebati 48,045 0.95
Kavcıoğlu

Sri Mulyani
21 Indonesia 4,648.4 0.98 Perry Warjiyo 47,943 0.95
Indrawati

Elin
22 Sweden 4,430.0 0.93 Stefan Ingves 45,759 0.91
Eliasson

Mateusz Marta
23 Poland 4,095.4 0.86 42,413 0.84
Morawiecki Kightley

Gottfried
24 Austria 3,932.0 0.83 Robert Holzmann 40,779 0.81
Haber

Tharman
25 Singapore 3,891.9 0.82 Ravi Menon 40,378 0.80
Shanmugaratnam
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.[125]

Effects of the quota system

The IMF's quota system was created to

raise funds for loans.[24] 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.[124]

This system follows the logic of a

shareholder-controlled organization:
wealthy countries have more say in the
making and revision of rules.[24] 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.[124]
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.[124] 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."[126] In 2008, a
number of quota reforms were passed
including shifting 6% of quota shares to
dynamic emerging markets and
developing countries.[127]

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.[124]
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.[128]

Use
A recent 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.[129]

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.[129] 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".[41]

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.[130] 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.[131][132]

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".[61] The paper, which was
discussed by the board on 20 May,[62]
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,[63] as was a
deconstruction by Matina Stevis of The
Wall Street Journal.[64]

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.[133] 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."[133]

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".[134]

Some research has found that IMF loans

can reduce the chance of a future banking
crisis,[135] while other studies have found
that they can increase the risk of political
crises.[136] IMF programs can reduce the
effects of a currency crisis.[137]

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.[138] 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.[139] Other research has
indicated that IMF loans can have a
positive impact on economic growth and
that their effects are highly nuanced.[140]

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.[141]
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.[142]

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,[143]
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.[144]
Others attribute the crisis to Argentina's
misdesigned fiscal federalism, which
caused subnational spending to increase
rapidly.[145] 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.

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.[146]

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".[147] 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?"[148][149]

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.[150] He had been
critical of "ultra-loose money policies" of
some unnamed countries.[151][152]

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.[153]

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.[23] 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.[154] 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.[155]

Jeffrey Sachs argues that the IMF's "usual

prescription is 'budgetary belt tightening to
countries who are much too poor to own
belts' ".[154] 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".[40]

One view is that conditionality undermines

domestic political institutions.[156] 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.[23] IMF conditions
are often criticised for reducing
government services, thus increasing
unemployment.[24]

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.[154] This assumes that
this narrow range of issues represents the
only possible problems; everything is
standardised and differing contexts are
ignored.[154] 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.[38]
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.[157]

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.[158] 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.[159] 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."[160]
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."[159]

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.[161]

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.[162][163]

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.[164][165][166]

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).[154]

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".[154]
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.[154]
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.[167] The United
States is the IMF's most powerful member,
and its influence reaches even into
decision-making concerning individual
loan agreements. 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".[168]

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.[169] 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,[170][171][172]
since 85% of the Fund's voting power was
required for the reforms to take effect,[173]
and the Americans held more than 16% of
voting power at the time.[2] After repeated
criticism,[174][175] the United States finally
ratified the voting reforms at the end of
2015.[176] The OECD countries maintained
their overwhelming majority of voting
share, and the United States in particular
retained its share at over 16%.[177]

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".[178]

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.[179]
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.[180]

A 2017 study found no evidence of IMF

lending programs undermining democracy
in borrowing countries.[181] To the contrary,
it found "evidence for modest but
definitively positive conditional differences
in the democracy scores of participating
and non-participating countries".[181]

On 28 June 2021, the IMF approved a

US$1 billion loan to the Ugandan
government despite protests from
Ugandans in Washington, London and
South Africa.[182][183]

Impact on access to food

A number of civil society organisations[184]

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[185]

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."[186]
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%.[187] 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.[188]
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.[189] 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".[189] 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.[190]

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.[191]

International central bank digital

currency

In April 2023, the IMF launched their

international central bank digital currency
through their Digital Currency Monetary
Authority, it will be called the Universal
Monetary Unit, or Units for shorthand. The
ANSI character will be Ü and will be used
to facilitate international banking and
international trade between countries and
currencies. It will help facilitate SWIFT
transactions on cross boarder
transactions at wholesale FX rates
instantaneously with real-time
settlements.[192][193] In June, it announced
it was working on a platform for central
bank digital currencies (CBDCs) that would
enable transctions between nations. IMF
Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva
said that if central banks did not agree on
a common platform, cryptocurrencies
would fill the resulting vacuum.[194]
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.[195] 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.[196]
Former IMF Managing Director Rodrigo
Rato was arrested in 2015 for alleged
fraud, embezzlement and money
laundering.[197][198] In 2017, the Audiencia
Nacional found Rato guilty of
embezzlement and sentenced him to 41⁄2
years' imprisonment.[199] In 2018, the
sentence was confirmed by the Supreme
Court of Spain.[200]

Alternatives
In March 2011, the Ministers of Economy
and Finance of the African Union proposed
to establish an African Monetary Fund.[201]
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.[202]

In 2014, the China-led Asian Infrastructure

Investment Bank was established.[168]

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.[203]

See also
Economy
portal
Money
portal
World
portal

Bank 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 – International
financial institution
World Bank residual model – Model to
measure illicit financial flows
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.

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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/9780226066905.0
01.0001 (https://doi.org/10.7208%2Fchi
cago%2F9780226066905.001.0001) .
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
(https://web.archive.org/web/201211140
82311/http://www.ashgate.com/default.a
spx?page=637&title_id=10989&edition_id
=14221&calcTitle=1) , (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 (https://web.a
rchive.org/web/20100503052836/http://
us.macmillan.com/governingrisk)
(Palgrave Macmillan; 2010).
Skidelsky, R. John Maynard Keynes:
Fighting for Britain, London, 2000.
Truman, E. Strengthening IMF
Surveillance: A Comprehensive Proposal
(https://web.archive.org/web/20101222
222103/http://www.iie.com/publication
s/pb/pb10-29.pdf) , Policy Brief 10–29,
Peterson Institute for International
Economics, 2010.
Weiss, Martin A. The International
Monetary Fund. (https://fas.org/sgp/crs/
misc/R42019.pdf) Archived (https://we
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(Washington, DC: Congressional
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Woods, N. The Globalizers: The IMF, the
World Bank, and Their Borrowers, Ithaca,
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Woods, Ngaire and Lombardi,
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