International Monetary Fund

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International Monetary Fund headquarters, Washington, D.C. (credit: Courtesy, International Monetary Fund)

Specialized agency of the United Nations system. It was conceived at the Bretton Woods Conference (1944) and officially founded in 1945 as a voluntary cooperative institution to help ensure the smooth international buying and selling of currency. More than 180 countries are members of the IMF. Its principal functions are stabilizing currency-exchange rates, financing the short-term balance-of-payments deficits of member countries, and providing advice and technical assistance to borrowing countries. Members contribute operating funds and receive voting rights according to their volume of international trade, national income, and international reserve holdings; the U.S. holds in excess of one-sixth of the voting rights, more than twice the percentage of any other member. The IMF has no coercive power over members, but it can refuse to lend money to members that do not agree to adhere to its policies; as a last resort it can ask members to withdraw from the organization. Critics of the IMF contend that the austerity and privatization measures it requires of borrowing countries reduce economic growth, deepen and prolong financial crises, and create severe hardships for the world's poorest people. See also International Bank for Reconstruction and Development; World Bank.

For more information on International Monetary Fund, visit Britannica.com.

Type: Group
On the web: http://www.imf.org

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an organization of 185 countries dedicated to promoting global monetary cooperation and the health and stability of the international financial system. Each member of the IMF contributes through the payment of quotas, ($352 billion in 2008) which reflect that country's size in the world economy and determine its voting power (the US has a 17% voting stake). The IMF supports worldwide economic growth by granting loans and technical assistance to countries in need. The IMF and sister institution the World Bank were formed by 45 countries in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in 1944 in an attempt to avoid the kinds of problems brought about by the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Officers:
Chairman and Managing Director: Dominique Strauss-Kahn
First Deputy Managing Director: John Lipsky
Director, Finance Department: Michael G. Kuhn

An international organization created for the purpose of:

1. Promoting global monetary and exchange stability.

2. Facilitating the expansion and balanced growth of international trade.

3. Assisting in the establishment of a multilateral system of payments for current transactions.

Investopedia Says:
The IMF plays three major roles in the global monetary system. The Fund surveys and monitors economic and financial developments, lends funds to countries with balance-of-payment difficulties, and provides technical assistance and training for countries requesting it.

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International organization, formed at the Bretton Woods economic conference in 1944, to maintain monetary stability in the world community. It has 184 members, including the United States. The IMF works closely with the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the World Bank). The International Monetary Fund's role has changed since the early 1970s when fixed-exchange rates were ended. The IMF currently directs much of its attention toward assisting developing countries manage their debts to foreign creditors.

The IMF makes loans in the form of drawings (Special Drawing Rights (Sdrs) by member countries. In recent years, the IMF has linked its lending activities to stringent internal restraints aimed at bringing inflation rates and the world debt crisis under control by reducing imports and increasing exports of debtor nations. Following the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and its destabilizing impact on developing countries worldwide, the IMF introduced several new credit facilities to assist member countries: a Supplemental Reserve Facility (SSF), established in December 1997 to assist nations with severe balance of payment problems, and a short-term Contingent Credit Lines (CCL) facility in April 1999 to provide countries with strong economic policies a line of defense against economic crises beyond their control.

The International Monetary Fund was established to foster international trade and currency conversion, which it does through consultation and loan activities. When created in 1946, the IMF had 39 member countries; by November 1999 the membership in the IMF had grown to 182 member countries. As of this writing, every major country is now a member, including the former communist countries, as are includes numerous small countries. The only exceptions are Cuba and North Korea.

To join the IMF, a country must deposit a sum of money called a quota subscription, the amount of which is based on the wealth of the country's economy. Quotas are reconsidered every five years and can be increased or decreased based on IMF needs and the prosperity of the member country. In 1999, the United States contributed the largest percentage of the annual contributions—18 percent—because it had the largest, richest economy in the world. Voting rights are allocated in proportion to the quota subscription.

Historical Development

The Depression in the 1930s devastated international trade and monetary exchange, creating a great loss of confidence on the part of those engaged in international business and finance. Because international traders lost confidence in the paper money used in international trade, there was an intense demand to convert paper money into gold—a demand beyond what the treasuries of countries could supply. Nations that defined the value of their currency in terms of a given amount of gold were unable to meet the conversion demand and had to abandon the gold standard. Valuing currencies in terms of given amounts of gold, however, had given currencies stable values that made international trade flow smoothly.

The relationship between money and the value of products became confused. Some nations hoarded gold to make their currency more valuable so that their producers could buy raw materials at lower prices. Other countries, desperate for foreign sales of their goods, engaged in competitive devaluations of their currencies. World trade became difficult. Countries restricted the exchange of currency, and even encouraged barter. In the early 1940s Harry Dexter White of the United States and John Maynard Keynes of the United Kingdom proposed the establishment of a permanent international organization to bring about the cooperation of all nations in order to achieve clear currency valuation and currency convertibility as well as to eliminate practices that undermine the world monetary system.

Finally, at an international meeting in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in July 1944, it was decided to create a new international monetary system and a permanent international organization to monitor it. Forty-four countries agreed to cooperate to solve international trade and investment problems, setting the following goals, for the new permanent, international organization:

• Unrestricted conversion of currencies
• Establishment of a value for each currency in relation to others
• Removal of restrictive trade practices

Creation of the International Monetary Fund

In 1946 in Washington, D.C., the international organization to monitor the new international monetary system came into existence—the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The purposes of the IMF are as follows:

To promote international monetary consultation, cooperation, and collaboration

To facilitate the expansion and balanced growth of international trade

To promote exchange stability

To assist in the establishment of a multilateral system of payments

To make its general resources temporarily available to its members experiencing balance of payments difficulties under adequate safeguards

To shorten the duration and lessen the degree of disequilibrium in the international balances of payments of members

The Bretton Woods agreement created fixed exchange rates between countries based on the value of each country's currency in relation to gold or indirectly in relation to gold by relating their currency to the U.S. dollar. The United States in turn guaranteed that the dollar could be exchanged for gold at a fixed exchange rate. The United States, however, ultimately could not maintain the dollar's promised convertibility, ending it in 1971, in large part because of inflation and a subsequent run on the U.S. gold reserve. The fixed-exchange-rate system collapsed. This led to a managed flexible-exchange-rate system with agreement among major countries that they would try to coordinate exchange rates based on price indexes. However, without operational criteria for managing currency relationships, exchange rates have been increasingly determined by volatile international capital movements rather than by trade relationships.

Organizational Structure

The organization of the IMF has at its top a board of governors and alternate governors, who are usually the ministers of finance and heads of central banks of each member country. Because of their positions, they are able to speak authoritatively for their countries. The entire board of governors and alternate governors meets once a year in Washington, D.C., to formally determine IMF policies. During the rest of the year, a twenty-four-member executive board, composed of representatives or the total board of governors, meets a number of times each week to supervise the implementation of the policies adopted by the board of governors. The IMF staff is headed by its managing director, who is appointed by the executive board. The managing director chairs meetings of the executive board after appointment. Most staff members work at IMF headquarters in Washington, D.C. A small number of staff members are assigned to offices in Geneva, Paris, and Tokyo and at the United Nations.

Surveillance and Consultations

At least annually, a team of IMF staff members visits each member country for two weeks. The team of four of five meets with government officials, makes inquiries, engages in discussions, and gathers information about the country's economic policies and their effectiveness. If there are currency exchange restrictions, the consultation includes inquiry as to progress toward the elimination of such restrictions. Statistics are also collected on such matters as exports and imports, tax revenues, and budgetary expenditures. The team reports the results of the visit to the IMF executive board. A summary of the discussion is transmitted to the country's government, and for countries agreeing to the release of the summary, to the public.

Financial Assistance

The IMF endeavors to stabilize the international monetary system by temporarily lending resources in the form of foreign currencies and gold to countries experiencing international payment difficulties. There are a number of reasons why a country may need such assistance. One possibility is that the country has a trade deficit, which is often offset by lending, capital investment, and possibly aid from richer countries. However, confidence in the country's economic system and its ability to repay its debts becomes diminished in such a situation. The IMF requires that the borrowing country provide a plan for reform that will ultimately result in resolving the payments problems. Reforms such as tighter fiscal and monetary policies, good government control of expenditures, elimination of corruption, and provision for greater disclosure are required.

The most immediate assistance to a member country with payments difficulty is permission to withdraw 25 percent of the quota subscription that was initially paid in the form of gold or convertible currency. If the country still cannot meet its payments obligations it can, ultimately, borrow up to three times its original quota payment. The borrowing country must produce a plan of reform that will overcome the payments problem.

The IMF has a number of additional lending plans to meet various problems experienced by its members as well as emergency lending programs. There are Stand-By Arrangements disbursed over one to two years for temporary deficits, the Compensatory and Contingency Financing Facility for sudden drops in export earnings, Emergency Assistance for natural disasters, Extended Fund Facility to correct structural problems with maturities of greater length, the Supplemental Reserve Facility to provide loans to countries experiencing short-term payments problems due to a sudden loss of market confidence in the country's currency, and the Systemic Transformation Facility for the former communist countries in Eastern Europe and Russia.

Special Drawing Rights (SDRS)

In the 1960s, during an expansion of the world economy while gold and the U.S. dollar were the reserve currencies, it appeared that reserves were insufficient to provide for international trade needs. The IMF was empowered to create a new reserve asset, called the special drawing right (SDR), which it could lend to member countries. The value assigned to the SDR is the average of the world's major currencies. Countries with strong currencies agreed to buy SDRs when needed by a country because of payment problems, and in turn sell other currencies. However, at present SDRs are used mostly for repayment of IMF loans. Creation of SDRs is limited by the IMF constitution to times when there is a long-term global reserve shortage. The board of governors and alternate governors is empowered to make such a determination.

Loans to Poor, Indebted Countries

The IMF has created various loan facilities such as the Trust Fund to provide loans to its poorest member countries. In addition, the IMF works cooperatively with the World Bank, other international organizations, individual countries, and private lenders to assist poor, debt-ridden countries. It encourages such countries to restructure their economies to create better economic conditions and better balance of payment conditions.

There have been critics of the IMF's effectiveness. Such critics have noted, for example, instances of massive corruption on the part of recipient governments that resulted in IMF funds being stolen and/or wasted. Also, there have been a number of instances in which IMF efforts have been assessed as unsuccessful. Recommended restrictive fiscal policies have been seen as causing troublesome conditions, such as food shortages and citizen unrest. Nobel-prize-winning economist Robert Mundell, for example, has taken the position that current IMF policy options are insufficient to achieve stable international currency exchange and thereby foster international trade. He recommends that a global currency and world central bank be created to establish a stable international currency.

(See also: Global Economy; International Investment; International Trade)

Bibliography

Driscoll, David D. (1998). "What Is the International Monetary Fund?" www.imf.org.

Gotherstrom, Maria (1998). "Development and Financial Structure of the International Monetary Fund." Quarterly Review—Sveriges Riksbank (Stockholm) 4:60-74.

Hearing before the Subcommittee on General Oversight and Investigations of the Committee on Banking and Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives. Review of the Operationsof the International Monetary Fund. No. 105-55.(1998). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

International Finance Section, Department of Economics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ. Essays in International Finance: A Survey of Financial Liberalization (No.211), November 1998; The International Commercial System (No. 210), September 1998; Should the IMF Pursue Capial Account Convertibility? (No. 207), May, 1998; From Halifax to Lyons: What Has Been Done About Crisis Management? (No. 200), October 1996.

International Monetary Fund. (1999). "IMF, at a Glance— Factsheet." www.imf.org.

[Article by: BERNARD H. NEWMAN]

A fund established in 1944 with the aims of encouraging exchange stability and eliminating exchange controls, promoting international monetary co-operation, and expanding world trade. The IMF is not a bank (compare with World Bank, to which it is a sister organization), but it facilitates access to funds, although often under very stringent conditions. See structural adjustment.

International Monetary Fund (IMF), created at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944, began operations on 1 March 1947.It had its inception on 1 July 1944, when delegates of forty-four nations met at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, and proposed two associated financial institutions—the IMF, with $8 billion capital, and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. A recurrence of the restrictive trade policies, exchange instability, and international lending abuses that had characterized the interwar era was feared. After World War I, nations had sought monetary stability by returning to the gold standard, but in many instances the gold standard took the form of a weak version of the gold exchange standard. Its breakdown contributed to the 1929–1936 economic debacle.

The IMF's original purpose was to support world trade by reestablishing a stable international system. To this end, it was given the mandate to monitor the exchange rate policies of member countries and provide short-term loans in case of balance of payments problems.

Since the IMF and member nations accepted the dollar as equal to gold, the growing number of dollars in their central bank reserves, especially after 1958 and in turn the consequence of chronic U.S. government deficits, stimulated worldwide inflation. The gold exchange standard broke down in 1968–1971, notably after the United States ceased redeeming dollars in gold on 15 August 1971, thereby severely damaging the prestige of the IMF.

With the collapse of fixed exchange rates in 1973, the dominant role of the IMF was to provide financial support for member countries. As of 1993, it had 178 members and had become a major financial intermediary. Its involvement is virtually required before international bankers will agree to refinance or defer loans for Third World countries. The IMF was also instrumental in providing funds for the emerging market economies in eastern Europe following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. The fund also provides information to the public, and technical assistance to governments of developing countries.

The IMF can make loans to member countries through standby arrangements. Depending on the size of the loan, the fund imposes certain conditions. Known as IMF conditionality, these measures often interfere with the sovereignty of member countries with regard to economic policy. IMF conditions can require devaluation of currencies, removal of government subsidies, cuts in social services, control over wages, trade liberalization, and pressure to pursue free-market policies. IMF conditionality has been criticized as being too severe, imposing hardship on debtor countries. Because IMF policies are imposed by an international agency consisting of industrialized countries, they give the appearance of maintaining the dependency of the Third World.

Critics point out that balance-of-payment problems in the Third World are often structural and long term, with the result that short-term stabilization by the IMF may lead to long-run development problems. Access of member countries to the fund's assets is determined by quota. Each member receives a quota based on the size of its economy. The quotas are defined in terms of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), reserve assets created by the IMF to supplement world reserves. The value of SDRs for member nations requesting loans is determined by an IMF accounting system based on a weighted average of major economic powers' currencies.

Bibliography

Aufricht, Hans. The International Monetary Fund: Legal Bases, Structure, Functions. New York: F. A. Praeger, 1964.

Horsefield, J. Keith, ed. The International Monetary Fund, 1945–65: Twenty Years of International Monetary Cooperation. Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund, 1969.

International Monetary Fund. "Supplement on the IMF." IMF Survey 22 (October 1993): 1–28.

Salda, Anne C. M. The International Monetary Fund. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1992.

An international institution charged with maintaining international monetary stability.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an international organization that provides temporary financial assistance to any of its 184 member countries in order to correct their payment imbalances. The IMF was established during the conference at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in 1944 because the Allies wanted to avoid the competitive currency devaluations, exchange controls, and bilateral agreements that the world had witnessed prior to World War II. The IMF's main goal was to promote stable currencies in order to enhance international commerce.

Originally, the IMF's position was that restoring payments equilibrium could be achieved within a year by eliminating excess demand. It was not until 1974 that the IMF established the external fund facility to provide its members with up to three years of financial assistance and also introduced a long-term approach, termed the enhanced structural adjustment facility. In exchange for this financing, the IMF demands that borrowers make fundamental changes in their economies to prevent future balance of payments problems. These changes range from stabilization of the exchange rate and of government deficits to structural adjustment of the economy through privatization of state enterprises and liberalization of trade.

By article IV of its charter, the IMF was given the right to monitor on a yearly basis the exchange rate, monetary and fiscal policies, structural policies, and financial and banking policies of every member. It has been heavily involved in many Middle Eastern countries. It has been involved in Egypt and other North African countries since the 1970s. It became involved in Lebanon during the 1990s and finally in Sudan and Yemen through its Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC). One Middle Eastern country, Saudi Arabia, enjoys a permanent voting position on the IMF board of governors.

Bibliography

Spero, Joan. The Politics of International Economic Relations. London: Allen and Unwin, 1978.

Vreeland, James. The IMF and Economic Development. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

— DAVID WALDNER
UPDATED BY KHALIL GEBARA

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an economic organization that promotes financial cooperation, economic stability, and fair trade among its 184 member nations and provides temporary monetary assistance to countries in need.

In its role as global economic watchdog, the IMF must continually keep an eye out for illegal activities. Following the events of September 11, 2001, that role took on an even greater urgency. Since then, the organization has launched a global effort to combat money laundering and to cut off funding to terrorist groups.

The need for a new world economic order. In the early 1940s, the world was still reeling from the financial turmoil of the Great Depression. As markets in the United States and around the world collapsed, countries sought to protect their weakened economies by closing their doors to foreign imports and restricting their citizens from making purchases abroad. The result was catastrophic; world trade nearly ground to a halt. In order to protect the world economy from suffering another similar blow, and to hasten financial recovery among war-torn nations, leaders from forty-five countries came together during the summer of 1944; their historic meeting in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, established a new international system of economic collaboration called the IMF. The Bretton Woods Conference also launched the IMF's sister organization, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), or World Bank. On December 27, 1945, representatives from twenty-nine member nations signed the Articles of Agreement, formally bringing the IMF into existence. The initial goals of the organization were to expand international trade, and to protect the stability of international currencies and exchange rates.

The IMF today. The IMF currently has three main responsibilities: surveillance, financial assistance, and technical assistance. The IMF keeps a watchful eye over its member nations throughout the year, monitoring each country's exchange rate and economic policies to protect the stability of the world economy. All member countries are entitled to financial assistance to help them recover from an economic crisis or to pay off foreign debt. By 2003, the IMF had about $88 billion in outstanding loans to eighty-eight nations. Because strategies of the IMF hold that one of the keys to worldwide economic stability is financial self-sufficiency, it has programs in place to teach countries how to plan and implement their own monetary, tax, and exchange rate policies.

With the increasing trend toward globalization (the merging of international markets), the IMF has turned its focus to emerging markets such as Asia and Latin America. By supporting economic growth and fostering the development of stable financial systems in these nations, the IMF hopes to avert an international financial crisis such as the worldwide depression of the late 1920s and 1930s, and to further strengthen the world economy.

Today, the IMF is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and staffed by a team of more than 2,500 people from nearly 140 countries. At the helm is the Board of Governors, composed of banking leaders and ministers of finance from each member country. The Board of Governors comes together once a year at the IMF-World Bank meeting, but much of the substantial operations are carried out by the twenty-four Executive Directors of the Executive Board. The Managing Director of the IMF serves as Chairman of the Executive Board. Corresponding to each Executive Director is one Governor from the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC). This committee meets twice a year to advise the IMF on issues related to the international monetary system.

A country's voting power is based on the size of its economy and on the amount of the quota (subscription fee) it pays when it joins the IMF, however most decisions are based on a member consensus, rather than on a vote. The United States has the largest quota, contributing nearly 18% of the IMF's total funding.

Further Reading

Books

Danaher, Kevin, ed. Fifty Years is Enough: The Case Against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 1994.

Harper, Richard H.R. Inside the IMF. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 1998.

Stiglitz, Joseph E. Globalization and its Discontents. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2002.

Periodicals

Garritsen De Vries, Margaret. "The IMF Fifty Years Later." Finance & Development June 1995: 43—47.

Electronic

The International Monetary Fund. <http://www.imf.org> (January 31, 2003).

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that seeks to promote international monetary cooperation and to stimulate international trade. The IMF has worked to stabilize world currencies and to develop programs of economic adjustment for nations that require economic reform.

The IMF was created in 1944 at the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, held at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. It first began operation in 1947, from its headquarters in Washington, D.C., with a fund of $9 billion in bills and currency, of which the United States contributed almost a third. The creation of the IMF was seen as a way to prevent retaliatory currency devaluations and trade restrictions, which were seen as a major cause of the worldwide depression prior to World War II.

Membership is open to countries willing to abide by terms established by the board of governors, which is composed of a representative from each member nation. General terms include obligations to avoid manipulating exchange rates, abstain from discriminatory currency practices, and refrain from imposing restrictions on the making of payments and currency transfers necessary to foreign trade.

The voting power of the governors is allocated according to the size of the quota of each member. The term quota refers to the IMF's unit of account, which is based on each member's relative position in the world economy. This position is measured by the size of the country's economy, foreign trade, and relative importance in the international monetary system. Once a quota is set by the IMF, the country must deposit with the organization, as a subscription, an amount equal to the size of the quota. Up to three-fourths of a subscription may consist of the currency of the subscribing nation. Each subscription forms part of the reserve available to countries suffering from balance-of-payment problems.

When a member has a balance-of-payment problem, it may apply to the IMF for needed foreign currency from the reserve derived from its quota. The member may use this foreign exchange for up to five years to help solve its problems, and then return the currency to the IMF's pool of resources. The IMF offers below-market rates of interest for using these funds. The member country whose currency is used receives most of the interest. A small amount goes to the IMF for operating expenses.

In its early years the IMF directed its major programs toward maintaining fixed exchange rates linked to the U.S. dollar, which in turn could be converted at a standard rate into gold. Present IMF policy emphasizes an orderly adjustment of currency exchange rates to reflect underlying economic forces. Special attention has been given to the needs of developing countries, in the form of programs to provide long-term assistance to cover foreign exchange demands necessitated by high import prices, declining export earnings, or development programs. In appropriate circumstances the IMF may impose conditions on the use of IMF resources to encourage recipient countries to make needed economic reforms.

Since 1982 the IMF has concentrated on the problems of developing nations. It has gone beyond its own resources, encouraging additional lending from commercial banks. The IMF has also established new programs, using funds from its richer members, to provide money in larger amounts and for longer periods than those granted under the quota-driven lending procedures. It works closely with the World Bank on these and other international monetary issues.

An agency, dominated by wealthy nations, that lends money to developing nations.

"IMF" redirects here. For other uses, see IMF (disambiguation).

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (September 2009)

Coordinates: 38°54′00″N 77°2′39″W / 38.9°N 77.04417°W / 38.9; -77.04417

International Monetary Fund
IMF member states in green[1]
Headquarters	Washington, D.C., USA
Managing Director	Dominique Strauss-Kahn
Central Bank of
Currency	Special Drawing Rights
ISO 4217 Code	XDR
Base borrowing rate	3.49% for SDRs[2]
Website	www.imf.org

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an international organization that oversees the global financial system by following the macroeconomic policies of its member countries, in particular those with an impact on exchange rates and the balance of payments. It is an organization formed with a stated objective of stabilizing international exchange rates and facilitating development.^[3] It also offers highly leveraged loans mainly to poorer countries. Its headquarters are located in Washington, D.C., United States.

Contents 1 Organization and purpose 1.1 History 1.2 Today 2 Data dissemination systems 3 Membership qualifications 4 Members' quotas and voting power, and Board of Governors 5 Assistance and reforms 6 IMF/World Bank support of military dictatorships 7 Criticism 7.1 Impact on public health 7.2 Criticism from free-market advocates 7.3 Attempts to repair image 8 Managing Director 9 Media representation of the IMF 10 See also 11 References 12 Further references 13 External links

Organization and purpose

Headquarters in Washington D.C.

The International Monetary Fund was created in July 1944, originally with 45 members,^[4] with a goal to stabilize exchange rates and assist the reconstruction of the world's international payment system. Countries contributed to a pool which could be borrowed from, on a temporary basis, by countries with payment imbalances. (Condon, 2007)

The IMF describes itself as "an organization of 186 countries (as of June 29, 2009),^[5][6] working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty". With the exception of Taiwan (expelled in 1980),^[7] North Korea, Cuba (left in 1964),^[8] Andorra, Monaco, Liechtenstein, Tuvalu and Nauru, all UN member states participate directly in the IMF. Member states are represented on a 24-member Executive Board (five Executive Directors are appointed by the five members with the largest quotas, nineteen Executive Directors are elected by the remaining members), and all members appoint a Governor to the IMF's Board of Governors.^[9]

History

The International Monetary Fund was formally created in July 1944 during the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference. The representatives of 44 governments met in the Mount Washington Hotel in the area of Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States of America, with the delegates to the conference agreeing on a framework for international economic cooperation.^[10] The IMF was formally organised on December 27, 1945, when the first 29 countries signed its Articles of Agreement. The statutory purposes of the IMF today are the same as when they were formulated in 1943 (see #Assistance and reforms).

Today

The IMF's influence in the global economy steadily increased as it accumulated more members. The number of IMF member countries has more than quadrupled from the 44 states involved in its establishment, reflecting in particular the attainment of political independence by many developing countries and more recently the collapse of the Soviet bloc. The expansion of the IMF's membership, together with the changes in the world economy, have required the IMF to adapt in a variety of ways to continue serving its purposes effectively.

In 2008, faced with a shortfall in revenue, the International Monetary Fund's executive board agreed to sell part of the IMF's gold reserves. On April 27, 2008, IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn welcomed the board's decision April 7, 2008 to propose a new framework for the fund, designed to close a projected $400 million budget deficit over the next few years. The budget proposal includes sharp spending cuts of $100 million until 2011 that will include up to 380 staff dismissals.^[11]

At the 2009 G-20 London summit, it was decided that the IMF would require additional financial resources to meet prospective needs of its member countries during the ongoing global crisis. As part of that decision, the G-20 leaders pledged to increase the IMF's supplemental cash tenfold to $500 billion, and to allocate to member countries another $250 billion via Special Drawing Rights.^[12][13]

Data dissemination systems

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 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 International Monetary Fund 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 and Poverty Reduction Strategic Papers.

The IMF established a system and standard to guide members in the dissemination to the public of their economic and financial data. Currently there are two such systems: General Data Dissemination System (GDDS) and its superset Special Data Dissemination System (SDDS), for those member countries having or seeking access to international capital markets.

The primary objective of the GDDS is to encourage IMF member countries to build a framework to improve data quality and increase statistical capacity building. This will involve the preparation of metadata describing current statistical collection practices and setting improvement plans. Upon building a framework, a country can evaluate statistical needs, set priorities in improving the timeliness, transparency, reliability and accessibility of financial and economic data.

Some countries initially used the GDDS, but lately upgraded to SDDS.

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

•  Palestinian Authority – GDDS
•  Hong Kong – SDDS
•  European Union institutions:
  • 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)

The biggest borrowers are Mexico, Hungary and Ukraine.

Membership qualifications

Any country may apply for membership to the IMF. The application will be considered first by the IMF's Executive Board. After its consideration, the Executive Board will submit a report to the Board of Governors of the IMF with recommendations in the form of a "Membership Resolution." These recommendations cover the amount of quota in the IMF, the form of payment of the subscription, and other customary terms and conditions of membership. After the Board of Governors has adopted the "Membership Resolution," the applicant state needs to take the legal steps required under its own law to enable it to sign the IMF's Articles of Agreement and to fulfil the obligations of IMF membership. Similarly, any member country can withdraw from the Fund, although that is rare. For example, in April 2007, the president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa announced the expulsion of the World Bank representative in the country. A few days later, at the end of April, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez announced that the country would withdraw from the IMF and the World Bank. Chavez dubbed both organisations as “the tools of the empire” that “serve the interests of the North”. [1] As of June 2009, both countries remain as members of both organisations. Venezuela was forced to back down because a withdrawal would have triggered default clauses in the country's sovereign bonds.

A member's quota in the IMF determines the amount of its subscription, its voting weight, its access to IMF financing, and its allocation of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs). A member state cannot unilaterally increase its quota—increases must be approved by the Executive Board and are linked to formulas that include many variables such as the size of a country in the world economy. For example, in 2001, China was prevented from increasing its quota as high as it wished, ensuring it remained at the level of the smallest G7 economy (Canada).^[14] In September 2005, the IMF's member countries agreed to the first round of ad hoc quota increases for four countries, including China. On March 28, 2008, the IMF's Executive Board ended a period of extensive discussion and negotiation over a major package of reforms to enhance the institution's governance that would shift quota and voting shares from advanced to emerging markets and developing countries. The Fund's Board of Governors must vote on these reforms by April 28, 2008.

Members' quotas and voting power, and Board of Governors

Major decisions require an 85% supermajority.^[15] The United States has always been the only country able to block a supermajority on its own.^[16]

Table showing the top 20 member countries in terms of voting power (2,216,193 votes in total):^[17]

IMF member country	Quota: millions of SDRs	Quota: percentage of total	Governor	Alternate Governor	Votes: number	Votes: percentage of total
United States	37149.3	17.09	Timothy F. Geithner	Ben Bernanke	371743	16.79
Japan	13312.8	6.13	Kaoru Yosano	Masaaki Shirakawa	133378	6.02
Germany	13008.2	5.99	Axel A. Weber	Wolfgang Schäuble	130332	5.88
France	10738.5	4.94	Christine Lagarde	Christian Noyer	107635	4.86
United Kingdom	10738.5	4.94	Alistair Darling	Mervyn King	107635	4.86
China	8090.1	3.72	Zhou Xiaochuan	Hu Xiaolian	81151	3.66
Italy	7055.5	3.25	Giulio Tremonti	Mario Draghi	70805	3.2
Saudi Arabia	6985.5	3.21	Ibrahim A. Al-Assaf	Hamad Al-Sayari	70105	3.17
Canada	6369.2	2.93	Jim Flaherty	Mark Carney	63942	2.89
Russian Federation	5945.4	2.74	Aleksei Kudrin	Sergey Ignatiev	59704	2.7
Netherlands	5162.4	2.38	Nout Wellink	L.B.J. van Geest	51874	2.34
Belgium	4605.2	2.12	Guy Quaden	Jean-Pierre Arnoldi	46302	2.09
India	4158.2	1.91	Pranab Mukherjee	D. Subbarao	41832	1.89
Switzerland	3458.5	1.59	Jean-Pierre Roth	Hans-Rudolf Merz	34835	1.57
Australia	3236.4	1.49	Wayne Swan	Ken Henry	32614	1.47
Mexico	3152.8	1.45	Agustín Carstens	Guillermo Ortiz	31778	1.43
Spain	3048.9	1.40	Elena Salgado	Miguel Fernández Ordóñez	30739	1.39
Brazil	3036.1	1.40	Guido Mantega	Henrique Meirelles	30611	1.38
Korea, South	2927.3	1.35	Okyu Kwon	Seong Tae Lee	29523	1.33
Venezuela	2659.1	1.22	Gastón Parra Luzardo	Rodrigo Cabeza Morales	26841	1.21
remaining 166 countries	60081.4	29.14	respective	respective	637067	28.78

Assistance and reforms

Main articles: Washington consensus and Structural adjustment program

The primary mission of the IMF is to provide financial assistance to countries that experience serious financial and economic difficulties using funds deposited with the IMF from the institution's 186 member countries. Member states with balance of payments problems, which often arise from these difficulties, may request loans to help fill gaps between what countries earn and/or are able to borrow from other official lenders and what countries must spend to operate, including to cover the cost of importing basic goods and services. In return, countries are usually required to launch certain reforms, which have often been dubbed the "Washington Consensus". These reforms are thought to be beneficial to countries with fixed exchange rate policies that may engage in fiscal, monetary, and political practices which may lead to the crisis itself. For example, nations with severe budget deficits, rampant inflation, strict price controls, or significantly over-valued or under-valued currencies run the risk of facing balance of payment crises. Thus, the structural adjustment programs are at least ostensibly intended to ensure that the IMF is actually helping to prevent financial crises rather than merely funding financial recklessness.

IMF/World Bank support of military dictatorships

The role of the Bretton Woods institutions has been controversial since the late Cold War period, as the IMF policy makers supported military dictatorships friendly to American and European corporations. Critics also claim that the IMF is generally apathetic or hostile to their views of democracy, human rights, and labor rights. The controversy has helped spark the Anti-globalization movement. Arguments in favor of the IMF say that economic stability is a precursor to democracy; however, critics highlight various examples in which democratized countries fell after receiving IMF loans.^[18]

In the 1960s, the IMF and the World Bank supported the government of Brazil’s military dictator Castello Branco with tens of millions of dollars of loans and credit that were denied to previous democratically-elected governments.^[19]

Countries that were or are under a Military dictatorship whilst being members of the IMF/World Bank (support from various sources in $ Billion):^[20]

Country indebted to IMF/World Bank	Dictator	In power from	In power to	Debt %[clarification needed] at start of dictatorship	Debt % at end of dictatorship	Country debts in 1996	Dictator debts generated $ billion	Dictator generated debt % of total debt
Argentina	Military dictatorship	1976	1983	9.3	48.9	93.8	39.6	42%
Bolivia	Military dictatorship	1962	1980	0	2.7	5.2	2.7	52%
Brazil	Military dictatorship	1964	1985	5.1	105.1	179	100	56%
Chile	Augusto Pinochet	1973	1989	5.2	18	27.4	12.8	47%
El Salvador	Military dictatorship	1979	1994	0.9	2.2	2.2	1.3	59%
Ethiopia	Mengistu Haile Mariam	1977	1991	0.5	4.2	10	3.7	37%
Haiti	Jean-Claude Duvalier	1971	1986	0	0.7	0.9	0.7	78%
Indonesia	Suharto	1967	1998	3	129	129	126	98%
Kenya	Moi	1979	2002	2.7	6.9	6.9	4.2	61%
Liberia	Doe	1979	1990	0.6	1.9	2.1	1.3	62%
Malawi	Banda	1964	1994	0.1	2	2.3	1.9	83%
Nigeria	Buhari/Babangida/Abacha	1984	1998	17.8	31.4	31.4	13.6	43%
Pakistan	Zia-ul Haq	1977	1988	7.6	17
Paraguay	Stroessner	1954	1989	0.1	2.4	2.1	2.3	96%
Philippines	Marcos	1965	1986	1.5	28.3	41.2	26.8	65%
Somalia	Siad Barre	1969	1991	0	2.4	2.6	2.4	92%
South Africa	apartheid	1948	1992		18.7	23.6	18.7	79%
Sudan	Nimeiry/al-Mahdi	1969	present	0.3	17	17	16.7	98%
Syria	Assad	1970	present	0.2	21.4	21.4	21.2	99%
Thailand	Military dictatorship	1950	1983	0	13.9	90.8	13.9	15%
Zaire/Congo	Mobutu	1965	1997	0.3	12.8	12.8	12.5	98%

Notes: Debt at takeover by dictatorship; earliest data published by the World Bank is for 1970. Debt at end of dictatorship (or 1996, most recent date for World Bank data).

Criticism

"The interests of the IMF represent the big international interests that seem to be established and concentrated in Wall Street."

— Che Guevara, Marxist revolutionary, 1959^[21]

Two criticisms from economists have been that financial aid is always bound to so-called "Conditionalities", including Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP). It is claimed that conditionalities (economic performance targets established as a precondition for IMF loans) retard social stability and hence inhibit the stated goals of the IMF, while Structural Adjustment Programs lead to an increase in poverty in recipient countries.^[22]

One of the main SAP conditions placed on troubled countries is that the governments sell up as much of their national assets as they can, normally to western corporations at heavily discounted prices.^{[citation needed]}

That said, the IMF sometimes advocates "austerity programmes," increasing taxes even when the economy is weak, in order to generate government revenue and balance budget deficits. Countries are often advised to lower their corporate tax rate. These policies were criticised by Joseph E. Stiglitz, former chief economist and Senior Vice President at the World Bank, in his book Globalization and Its Discontents.^[23] He argued that by converting to a more Monetarist approach, the fund no longer had a valid purpose, 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".^[24]

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, 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 privatization of strategically vital national resources.^[25] Others attribute the crisis to Argentina's misdesigned fiscal federalism, which caused subnational spending to increase rapidly.^[26] 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.^[27] The current — as of early 2006 — trend towards 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.

Another example of where IMF Structural Adjustment Programmes aggravated the problem was in Kenya. Before the IMF got involved in the country, the Kenyan central bank oversaw all currency movements in and out of the country. The IMF mandated that the Kenyan central bank had to allow easier currency movement. However, the adjustment resulted in very little foreign investment, but allowed Kamlesh Manusuklal Damji Pattni, with the help of corrupt government officials, to siphon off billions of Kenyan shillings in what came to be known as the Goldenberg scandal, leaving the country worse off than it was before the IMF reforms were implemented.^{[citation needed]} In an interview, the former Romanian Prime Minister Tăriceanu stated that "Since 2005, IMF is constantly making mistakes when it appreciates the country's economic performances".^[28]

In September 2007 the IMF said "given the Irish economy's strong fundamentals and the authorities' commitment to sound policies, the Directors expected economic growth to remain robust over the medium term".^[29] Seventeen months later in April 2009 the New York Times quoted Nobel prize-winning economist, Paul Krugman, who identified Ireland as a model for the worst-case scenario for the global economy.^[30]

Overall the IMF success record is perceived as limited.^{[citation needed]} While it was created to help stabilize the global economy, since 1980 critics claim over 100 countries (or reputedly most of the Fund's membership) have experienced a banking collapse that they claim have reduced GDP by four percent or more, far more than at any time in Post-Depression history.^{[citation needed]} The considerable delay in the IMF's response to any crisis, and the fact that it tends to only respond to them (or even create them^[31]) rather than prevent them, has led many economists to argue for reform. In 2006, an IMF reform agenda called the Medium Term Strategy was widely endorsed by the institution's member countries. The agenda includes changes in IMF governance to enhance the role of developing countries in the institution's decision-making process and steps to deepen the effectiveness of its core mandate, which is known as economic surveillance or helping member countries adopt macroeconomic policies that will sustain global growth and reduce poverty. On June 15, 2007, the Executive Board of the IMF adopted the 2007 Decision on Bilateral Surveillance, a landmark measure that replaced a 30-year-old decision of the Fund's member countries on how the IMF should analyse economic outcomes at the country level.

Impact on public health

In 2008, a study by analysts from Cambridge and Yale universities published on the open-access Public Library of Science concluded that strict conditions on the international loans by the IMF 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 %.^[32]

Criticism from free-market advocates

Typically the IMF and its supporters advocate a monetarist approach. As such, adherents of supply-side economics generally find themselves in open disagreement with the IMF. The IMF frequently advocates currency devaluation, criticized by proponents of supply-side economics as inflationary. Secondly they link higher taxes under "austerity programmes" with economic contraction.

Currency devaluation is recommended by the IMF to the governments of poor nations with struggling economies. Some economists claim these IMF policies are destructive to economic prosperity.

Complaints have also been directed toward the International Monetary Fund gold reserve being undervalued. At its inception in 1945, the IMF pegged gold at US$35 per Troy ounce of gold. In 1973, the Nixon administration lifted the fixed asset value of gold in favor of a world market price. This need to lift the fixed asset value of gold had largely come about because Petrodollars outside the United States were worth more than could be backed by the gold at Fort Knox under the fixed exchange rate system. Following this, the fixed exchange rates of currencies tied to gold were switched to a floating rate, also based on market price and exchange. The fixed rate system had only served to limit the nominal amount of assistance the organisation could provide to debt-ridden countries. Current IMF rules prohibit members from linking their currencies to gold.^{[citation needed]}

Attempts to repair image

Research by the Pew Research Center shows that more than 60 percent of Asians and 70 percent of Africans feel that the IMF and the World Bank have a positive effect on their country. However it is pertinent to note that the survey aggregated international organisations including the World Trade Organisation. Also, a similar percentage of people in the Western world believed that these international organisations had a positive effect on their countries. In 2005, the IMF was the first multilateral financial institution to implement a sweeping debt-relief program for the world's poorest countries known as the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative. By year-end 2006, 23 countries mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and Central America had received total relief of debts owed to the IMF.

Managing Director

Historically the IMF's managing director has been European and the president of the World Bank has been from the United States. 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. Executive Directors, who confirm the managing director, are voted in by Finance Ministers from countries they represent. The First Deputy Managing Director of the IMF, the second-in-command, has traditionally been (and is today) an American.

The IMF is for the most part controlled by the major Western Powers, with voting rights on the Executive board based on a quota derived from the relative size of a country in the global economy. Critics claim that the board rarely votes and passes issues contradicting the will of the US or Europeans, which combined represent the largest bloc of shareholders in the Fund. On the other hand, Executive Directors that represent emerging and developing countries have many times strongly defended the group of nations in their constituency. Alexandre Kafka, who represented several Latin American countries for 32 years as Executive Director (including 21 as the dean of the Board), is a prime example. Mohamed Finaish from Libya, the Executive Director representing the majority of the Arab World and Pakistan, was a tireless defender^{[citation needed]} of the developing nations' rights at the IMF until the 1992 elections.

Rodrigo Rato became the ninth Managing Director of the IMF on June 7, 2004 and resigned his post at the end of October 2007.

EU ministers agreed on the candidacy of Dominique Strauss-Kahn as managing director of the IMF at the Economic and Financial Affairs Council meeting in Brussels on July 10, 2007. On September 28, 2007, the International Monetary Fund's 24 executive directors elected Mr. Strauss-Kahn as new managing director, with broad support including from the United States and the 27-nation European Union. Strauss-Kahn succeeded Spain's Rodrigo de Rato, who retired on October 31, 2007.^[33] The only other nominee was Josef Tošovský, a late candidate proposed by Russia. Strauss-Kahn said: "I am determined to pursue without delay the reforms needed for the IMF to make financial stability serve the international community, while fostering growth and employment."^[34]

Dates	Name	Country
May 6, 1946 – May 5, 1951	Camille Gutt	Belgium
August 3, 1951 – October 3, 1956	Ivar Rooth	Sweden
November 21, 1956 – May 5, 1963	Per Jacobsson	Sweden
September 1, 1963 – August 31, 1973	Pierre-Paul Schweitzer	France
September 1, 1973 – June 16, 1978	Johannes Witteveen	Netherlands
June 17, 1978 – January 15, 1987	Jacques de Larosière	France
January 16, 1987 – February 14, 2000	Michel Camdessus	France
May 1, 2000 – March 4, 2004	Horst Köhler	Germany
June 7, 2004 – October 31, 2007	Rodrigo Rato	Spain
November 1, 2007 – present	Dominique Strauss-Kahn	France

Media representation of the IMF

Life and Debt, a documentary film, deals with the IMF's policies' influence on Jamaica and its economy from a critical point of view. In 1978, one year after Jamaica first entered a borrowing relationship with the IMF, the Jamaican dollar was still worth more on the open exchange than the US dollar; by 1995, when Jamaica terminated that relationship, the Jamaican dollar had eroded to less than 2 cents US. Such observations lead to skepticism that IMF involvement is not necessarily helpful to a third world economy.

The Debt of Dictators [2] explores the lending of billions of dollars by the IMF, World Bank multinational banks and other international financial institutions to brutal dictators throughout the world. (see IMF/World Bank support of military dictatorships)

Radiohead mentions the IMF in their song "Electioneering" on their 1997 release, OK Computer. The lyrics state, "It's just business/Cattle prods and the IMF/I trust I can rely on your vote". Bruce Cockburn mentions the IMF in his song "Call It Democracy". The lyrics state "IMF dirty MF/takes away everything it can get/always making certain that there's one thing left/keep them on the hook with insupportable debt". Rage Against The Machine in "Wind Below" from Evil Empire makes reference to IMF with the lyrics "Flip this capital eclipse/ Them bury life with IMF shifts, and poison lips". Thievery Corporation mention the IMF in their song "Vampires" on their album Radio Retaliation: the lyrics are "Lies and theft/ Guns and debt/ Life and death/ IMF".

See also

• Third world debt
• Economics
• Special Drawing Rights
• Development aid
• Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
• Globalization and Its Discontents
• Managing for development results
• Globalization and Health
• Bancor
• Bank for International Settlements
• World Bank
• Inter-American Development Bank
• Bretton Woods system
• Global Governance Watch

References

1. ^ IMF Members' Quotas and Voting Power, and IMF Board of Governors
2. ^ Exchange Rate Archives by Month
3. ^ Sullivan, arthur; Steven M. Sheffrin (2003). Economics: Principles in action. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458: Pearson Prentice Hall. pp. 488. ISBN 0-13-063085-3. http://www.pearsonschool.com/index.cfm?locator=PSZ3R9&PMDbSiteId=2781&PMDbSolutionId=6724&PMDbCategoryId=&PMDbProgramId=12881&level=4. 
4. ^ "Factsheet - The IMF at a Glance". IMF. June 2009. http://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/facts/glance.htm. Retrieved 19 July 2009. 
5. ^ Staff reporter (2009-06-29). "Republic of Kosovo is now officially a member of the IMF and the World Bank". The Kosovo Times. http://www.kosovotimes.net/flash-news/676-republic-of-kosovo-is-now-officially-a-member-of-the-imf-and-the-world-bank.html. Retrieved 2009-06-29. "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." 
6. ^ International Monetary Fund (2009-06-29). "Kosovo Becomes the International Monetary Fund’s 186th Member". Press release. http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2009/pr09240.htm. Retrieved 2009-06-29. 
7. ^ Andrews, Nick; Bob Davis (2009-05-07). "Kosovo Wins Acceptance to IMF". The Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124154560907188151.html. Retrieved 2009-05-07. "Taiwan was booted out of the IMF in 1980 when China was admitted, and it hasn't applied to return since." 
8. ^ Staff reporter (2009-04-27). "Brazil calls for Cuba to be allowed into IMF". Caribbean Net News. http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/cuba/cuba.php?news_id=15996&start=0&category_id=5. Retrieved 2009-05-07. "Cuba was a member of the IMF until 1964, when it left under revolutionary leader Fidel Castro following his confrontation with the United States." 
9. ^ IMF Articles of Agreement, Article XII Section 2(a) and Section 3(b).
10. ^ Brief video of the Bretton Woods Conference is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVytOtfPZe8
11. ^ http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2008/pr0874.htm
12. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7979483.stm
13. ^ G20: Gordon Brown brokers massive financial aid deal for global economy
14. ^ Barnett, Michael; Finnemore, Martha (2004), Rules for the World: International Organisations in Global Politics, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, ISBN 9780801488238 .
15. ^ CounterPunch, 2 September, Multilateral Money
16. ^ However, the 27 member states of the European Union have a combined vote of 710,786 (32.07%).
17. ^ "http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/memdir/members.htm#3". IMF. http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/memdir/members.htm#3. Retrieved 2007-09-24. 
18. ^ "World Bank - IMF support to dictatorships". cadtm. http://www.cadtm.org/spip.php?article809. Retrieved 2007-09-21. 
19. ^ BRAZIL Toward Stability, TIME Magazine, December 31, 1965.
20. ^ "Dictators and debt". Jubilee 2000. http://www.jubileeresearch.org/analysis/reports/dictatorsreport.htm. Retrieved 2007-09-21. 
21. ^ An interview with Che Guevara for Radio Rivadavia of Argentina on November 3, 1959.
22. ^ Hertz, Noreena. The Debt Threat. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2004.
23. ^ Stiglitz, Joseph. Globalization and its Discontents. New York: WW Norton & Company, 2002.
24. ^ Globalization: Stiglitz's Case
25. ^ Economic debacle in Argentina: The IMF strikes again
26. ^ Stephen Webb, "Argentina: Hardening the Provincial Budget Constraint," in Rodden, Eskeland, and Litvack (eds.), Fiscal Decentralization and the Challenge of Hard Budget Constraints (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003).
27. ^ How the IMF Props Up the Bankrupt Dollar System, by F. William Engdahl, US/Germany
28. ^ Tăriceanu: FMI a făcut constant greşeli de apreciere a economiei româneşti - Mediafax
29. ^ http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pn/2007/pn07117.htm
30. ^ http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2009/0421/1224245070922.html
31. ^ Budhoo, Davidson. Enough is Enough: Dear Mr. Camdessus... Open Letter to the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. New York: New Horizons Press, 1990.
32. ^ International Monetary Fund Programs and Tuberculosis Outcomes in Post-Communist Countries PLoS Medicine. The study has not been independently verified, nor have the authors published parts of their supporting data. Retrieved 29-7-2008.
33. ^ Yahoo.com, IMF to choose new director
34. ^ BBC NEWS, Frenchman is named new IMF chief

Further references

• Jan Joost Teunissen and Age Akkerman (eds.) (2005). Helping the Poor? The IMF and Low-Income Countries. FONDAD. ISBN 90-74208-25-8. 
• Dreher, Axel (2002). The Development and Implementation of IMF and World Bank Conditionality. HWWA. ISSN 1616-4814. http://econwpa.wustl.edu/eps/if/papers/0207/0207003.pdf. 
• Dreher, Axel (2004). "A Public Choice Perspective of IMF and World Bank Lending and Conditionality". Public Choice 119 (3–4): 445–464. doi:10.1023/B:PUCH.0000033326.19804.52. 
• Dreher, Axel (2004). "The Influence of IMF Programs on the Re-election of Debtor Governments". Economics & Politics 16 (1): 53–75. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0343.2004.00131.x. 
• Dreher, Axel (2003). "The Influence of Elections on IMF Programme Interruptions". The Journal of Development Studies 39 (6): 101–120. doi:10.1080/00220380312331293597. 
• The Best Democracy Money Can Buy by Greg Palast (2002)
• The IMF and The World Bank: How do they differ? by David D. Driscoll
• Rivalries between IMF and IBRD, "Sister-talk", The Economist (2007-03-01)
• George, S. (1988). A Fate Worse Than Debt. London: Penguin Books.
• Hancock, G. (1991). Lords of Poverty: The Free-Wheeling Lifestyles, Power, Prestige and Corruption of the Multi-billion Dollar Aid Business. London: Mandarin.
• Markwell, Donald (2006), John Maynard Keynes and International Relations: Economic Paths to War and Peace, Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press.
• Rapkin, David P. and Jonathan R. Strand (2005) “Developing Country Representation and Governance of the International Monetary Fund,” World Development 33, 12: 1993–2011.
• Strand, Jonathan R and David P. Rapkin (2005) “Voting Power Implications of a Double Majority Voting Procedure in the IMF’s Executive Board,” in Reforming the Governance of the IMF and World Bank, Ariel Buira, ed, London: Anthem Press.
• Williamson, John. (August 1982). The Lending Policies of the International Monetary Fund, Policy Analyses in International Economics 1, Washington D.C., Institute for International Economics. ISBN 0-88132-000-5
• Chomsky, Noam. Interview with Amy Goodman. Noam Chomsky on the Global Economic Crisis, Healthcare, US Foreign Policy and Resistance to American Empire. Democracy Now!. New York. April 13, 2009.

External links

• IMF and International Economic Policy U.S. House of Representatives
• International Monetary Fund website
• Finance & Development - A quarterly magazine of the IMF
• Annual Reports of the Executive Board
• World Economic Outlook Reports
• IMF Publications
• IMF Fiscal Affairs Department (FAD)
• August Review - Global Banking: The IMF
• Kenneth Rogoff - The sisters at 60
• How the IMF Props Up the Dollar System
• IMF’s Origins as a Blueprint for Its Future, Anna J. Schwartz, National Bureau of Economic Research
• Center for International Finance & Development by the University of Iowa research center
• IMF-Supported Macroeconomic Policies and the World Recession: A Look at Forty-One Borrowing Countries, October 2009, report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research
• What's the difference between the IMF and the World Bank? by economist Arthur MacEwan, in Dollars & Sense magazine
• "Monetary Freedom Act" HR 391, by Congressman Ron Paul, 1981
• Bretton Woods Project Critical voices on the World Bank and IMF
• Eurodad report: Critical conditions: The IMF maintains its grip on low-income governments
• The IMF Rules the World by Michael Hudson, Counterpunch, April 6 2009
• Reforming the IMF: A Debate, from Summer 2007 issue of International Finance
• Fallacy and the Reality of IMF Standby Arrangement for Sri Lanka by The Sunday Times

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v • d • e Central banks Global Bank for International Settlements · Financial Stability Board · Basel Committee on Banking Supervision   By continent Africa Central Bank of West African States · Bank of Central African States · Bank of Algeria · Central Bank of Angola · Bank of Botswana · Bank of the Republic of Burundi · Bank of Cape Verde · Central Bank of the Comoros · Central Bank of the Congo · Central Bank of Djibouti · Central Bank of Egypt · Bank of Eritrea · National Bank of Ethiopia · Central Bank of The Gambia · Bank of Ghana · Central Bank of the Republic of Guinea · Central Bank of Kenya · Central Bank of Lesotho · Central Bank of Liberia · Central Bank of Libya · Bank Al-Maghrib (Morocco) · Bank of Namibia · Central Bank of Nigeria · South African Reserve Bank · Bank of Tanzania · Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Americas Central Bank of Argentina · Central Bank of Barbados · Central Bank of Brazil · Bank of Canada · Central Bank of Chile · Eastern Caribbean Central Bank · Bank of Mexico · Central Bank of Nicaragua · Bank of the Republic · Central Reserve Bank of Peru · Federal Reserve System (United States) · Central Bank of Venezuela · Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago Oceania Reserve Bank of Australia · Reserve Bank of Fiji · Reserve Bank of New Zealand  · Bank of Papua New Guinea  · Central Bank of Samoa · Central Bank of Solomon Islands · National Reserve Bank of Tonga Asia Central Bank of Bahrain · Bangladesh Bank · Brunei Currency and Monetary Board · People's Bank of China · Reserve Bank of India · Central Bank of Iran · Central Bank of Iraq · Bank of Israel · Bank Indonesia · Bank of Japan · National Bank of Kazakhstan · National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic · Bank of Korea · Central Bank of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea · Central Bank of Kuwait · Banque du Liban · Central Bank of Malaysia · Bank of Mongolia  · Central Bank of Oman · State Bank of Pakistan · Central Bank of the Philippines  · Qatar Central Bank · Monetary Authority of Singapore · Central Bank of Syria · Central Bank of the Republic of China (Taiwan) · Bank of Thailand · Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates · Central Bank of Uzbekistan · State Bank of Vietnam · Hong Kong Monetary Authority Europe European Central Bank (Eurozone) · Bank of Abkhazia · Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina · Bank of Albania · Bulgarian National Bank · Croatian National Bank · Czech National Bank · Bank of England · Bank of Estonia · Hungarian National Bank · National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia · Central Bank of Kosovo · Polish National Bank · National Bank of Romania · Central Bank of Russia  · Central Bank of Montenegro · National Bank of Serbia · Swiss National Bank  · Central Bank of Turkey · National Bank of Ukraine   Policies and implementation Policies Expansionary monetary policy · Contractionary monetary policy · Capital requirement Implementation Open market operations · Capital control · Discount rate · Money creation · Interest rates · Sovereign wealth fund   Bretton Woods system World Bank · International Monetary Fund · International Bank for Reconstruction and Development · International Finance Corporation · International Development Association · Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency · International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes List of central banks Names in italics indicate non-sovereign (dependent) territories and/or former countries.

v • d • e Supranationalism / World government Theory Federalism · Confederation · Intergovernmentalism · Anti-nationalism · Globalization · Democratic mundialization · Pax · Cosmopolitanism  · New World Order · Supranational union International bodies United Nations · Interpol · International Monetary Fund · World Bank Group · World Trade Organization · Commonwealth of Nations Regional bodies European Union · Latin Union · Council of Europe · Caribbean Community · Arab League · African Union · Union of South American Nations · Shanghai Cooperation Organisation · Association of Southeast Asian Nations · Association of Caribbean States · Central American Integration System · Commonwealth of Independent States · Organization of American States · South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation · Pacific Islands Forum · North Atlantic Treaty Organization · Mercosur International parliaments United Nations General Assembly · European Parliament · Arab Parliament  · Pan-African Parliament · Latin American Parliament · South American Parliament · Mercosur Parliament · Inter-Parliamentary Union International courts International Criminal Court · International Court of Justice · International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia · International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda · African Court of Justice · Caribbean Court of Justice · Inter-American Court of Human Rights  · European Court of Justice · European Court of Human Rights Law and treaties International law (Public · Private · Supranational) · United Nations Charter · Universal Declaration of Human Rights · Geneva Conventions · Rome Statute of the ICC · Kyoto Protocol · European Union treaties · European Union law · Treaty of Chaguaramas History Holy Roman Empire · League of Nations · Permanent Court of International Justice · Nuremberg Trials · Permanent Court of Arbitration · Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere Proposals and concepts United Nations Parliamentary Assembly · Central Asian Union · Commonwealth Union · Pacific Union · North American Union · East African Federation · Arab Union · Federal Europe · East Asian Community · United States of Africa Movements Federal Union · World Federalist Movement · Global citizens movement

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