International Monetary Fund

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

International Monetary Fund
Official Logo for the IMF
Formation	Adopted: July 22, 1944 (1944-07-22) Entered into force: December 27, 1945 (1945-12-27)
Type	International Economic Organization
Headquarters	Washington, D.C. United States
Membership	185 Nations (Founding); 187 Nations (To Date)
Official languages	English, French, and Spanish
Managing Director	Christine Lagarde
Main organ	Board of Governors
Website	http://www.imf.org

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an international organization that was conceived on July 22, 1944 originally with 45 members and came into existence on December 27, 1945 when 29 countries signed the agreement, 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. The IMF works to improve the economies of its member countries. The IMF describes itself as “an organization of 187 countries (as of July 2010), working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty.” The organization's stated objectives are to promote international economic cooperation, international trade, employment, and exchange rate stability, including by making resources available to member countries to meet balance of payments needs. Its headquarters are in Washington, D.C..

Membership

  IMF member states

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

The members of the IMF are 186 members of the UN (all UN member states but 7) and Republic of Kosovo.

Former members are Cuba (which left in 1964) and the Republic of China which was ejected from the UN after losing support of then U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and replaced by the People's Republic of China in 1980.

Apart from Cuba, the other six member states of the UN not belonging to the IMF are: North Korea, Andorra, Monaco, Liechtenstein, Nauru and South Sudan.

Cook Islands, Niue, Vatican City, and the rest of the states with limited recognition are not members of the IMF either.

Some members have a very difficult relationship with the IMF and even when they are still members they do not allow to be monitored. Argentina for example refuses to participate in an Article IV Consultation with the IMF.

All 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.The powers of the other countries within the organization are represented on a proportional scale to their population and economic rank in the world. The Executive board are the general owners of the IMF and can control major decisions within the organization, but all other member countries are represented on the population, economic scale. For further in depth information and a guide to the proportions and numbers associated with deciding the voting rights of the other countries please reference "Power distribution analysis in the international monetary fund." ‘’Automation & Remote Control’’.

All members of the IMF are also International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) members and vice versa.^{[citation needed]}

History

IMF "Headquarters 1" in Washington, D.C.

The International Monetary Fund was conceived on July 22, 1944 during the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference. The representatives of 45 governments met in the Mount Washington Hotel in the area of Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States, with the delegates to the conference agreeing on a framework for international economic cooperation. The IMF was formally organized 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).

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 dissolution in 1991 of the Soviet Union. 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, former IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn welcomed the board’s decision of 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.

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 financial 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.

On October 23, 2010, the ministers of finance of G-20, governing most of the IMF member quotas, agreed to reform IMF and shift about 6 percent of the voting shares to major developing nations and countries with emerging markets.

As of August 2010, Romania ($13.9 billion), Ukraine ($12.66 billion), Hungary ($11.7 billion), and Greece ($30 billion) are the largest borrowers of the fund.

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: GDDS and its superset 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 meta data 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 later upgraded to SDDS.

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

• Palestinian National Authority – GDDS
• Hong Kong – SDDS
• Macau - GDDS
• 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)

Member states

Membership qualifications

IMF "Headquarters 2" in Washington, D.C.

The application will be considered first by the IMF’s executive board. After its consideration, the 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 fulfill 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 organizations as “the tools of the empire” that “serve the interests of the North.” As of June 2009, both countries remain as members of both organizations. The government of Venezuela was forced to back down because a withdrawal would have triggered default clauses in the country’s sovereign bonds.^{[citation needed]}

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 of IMF and are linked to formulas that include many variables such as the size of a country in the world economy. For example, in 2001, the People’s Republic of China was prevented from increasing its quota as high as it wished, ensuring it remained at the level of the smallest G7 economy (Canada).

In September 2005 the IMF’s member countries agreed to the first round of ad-hoc quota increases for four countries, including China^{[citation needed]}. 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.^{[citation needed]} Under existing arrangements, the industrialized countries (including Mexico) hold 57 per cent of the IMF votes^{[citation needed]}. But the financial crisis has tilted control away from heavily indebted mature economies, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, in favour of the fast-growing, cash-rich, so-called BRIC economies of Brazil, Russia, India, and China.

In May 2011 the IMF's Leader Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested which opened the IMF's and world bank spot for a new leader. This being said they were really looking for some change to open things up to other countries to lead, and to get a voting system changed around. The voting system gives bigger countries more votes, but also helps Small Developing countries have a bigger say due to their economic growth.

Since the United States has by far the largest share of votes (approx. 17 percent) amongst IMF members (see table below), it has little to lose relative to European nations. At the 2009 G-20 Pittsburgh summit, the U.S. raised the possibility that some European countries would reduce their votes in favour of increasing the votes for emerging economies. However, both France and Britain were particularly reluctant as an increase in China’s votes would mean China now has more votes than the UK and France. At a subsequent IMF meeting in Istanbul, the same month as the Pittsburgh Summit, former IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn then highlighted that “If we don’t correct them, we’ll have the recipe for the next major crisis.” Citing the seriousness of the issue to be tackled.

Members' quotas and voting power, and board of governors

Major decisions require an 85 percent supermajority. The United States has always been the only country able to block a supermajority on its own. The following table shows the top 20 member states in terms of voting power (2,220,817 votes in total). The 27 member states of the European Union have a combined vote of 710,786 (32.07 percent).

On October 23, 2010, the ministers of finance of G-20, governing most of the IMF member quotas, agreed to reform IMF and shift about 6 percent of the voting shares to major developing nations and countries with emerging markets.

Members' quotas and voting power, board of governors and population (Note: Voting shares before the changes made on July, 2011)

IMF member country Quota: millions of SDRs Quota: percentage of total Governor Alternative Governor Votes: number Votes: percentage of total Population: percentage of world United States 42,122.4 17.72 Timothy Geithner Ben Bernanke 421,964 16.77 4.48 Japan 15,628.5 6.57 Yoshihiko Noda Masaaki Shirakawa 157,025 6.24 1.83 Germany 14,565.5 6.13 Jens Weidmann Wolfgang Schäuble 146,395 5.82 1.17 United Kingdom 10,738.5 4.52 George Osborne Sir Mervyn King 108,125 4.30 0.89 France 10,738.5 4.52 François Baroin Christian Noyer 108,125 4.30 0.93 China 9,525.9 4.01 Zhou Xiaochuan Yi Gang 95,999 3.82 19.16 Italy 7,882.3 3.32 Mario Monti Ignazio Visco 79,563 3.16 0.87 Saudi Arabia 6,985.5 2.94 Ibrahim A. Al-Assaf Hamad Al-Sayari 70,595 2.81 0.39 India 5,821.5 2.75 Pranab Mukherjee Duvvuri Subbarao 58,955 2.34 17.31 Canada 6,369.2 2.68 Jim Flaherty Mark Carney 64,432 2.56 0.49 Russia 5,945.4 2.50 Aleksei Kudrin Sergey Ignatyev 60,194 2.39 2.04 Netherlands 5,162.4 2.17 Klaas Knot L.B.J. van Geest 52,364 2.08 0.24 Belgium 4,605.2 1.94 Guy Quaden Jean-Pierre Arnoldi 46,792 1.86 0.16 Brazil 4,250.5 1.79 Guido Mantega Alexandre Tombini 43,245 1.72 2.75 Spain 4,023.4 1.69 Elena Salgado Miguel Fernández Ordóñez 40,974 1.63 0.66 Mexico 3,625.7 1.52 Agustín Carstens Guillermo Ortiz 36,997 1.47 1.61 Switzerland 3,458.5 1.45 Philipp Hildebrand Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf 35,325 1.40 0.11 South Korea 3,366.4 1.42 Okyu Kwon Seong Tae Lee 34,404 1.37 0.69 Australia 3,236.4 1.36 Wayne Swan Martin Parkinson 33,104 1.32 0.33 Venezuela 2,659.1 1.12 Gastón Parra Luzardo Rodrigo Cabeza Morales 27,331 1.09 0.38 remaining 166 countries 62,593.8 28.79 respective respective 667,438 30.05 43.51

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 187 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 structural adjustment programs (SAPs), 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 that may lead to the crisis itself. For example, nations with severe budget deficits, rampant inflation, strict price controls, or significantly overvalued or undervalued 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.

Following the recent economic crisis, the IMF has attempted to help emerging economies deal with large capital outflows.

Criticism

Two criticisms from economists have been that financial aid is always bound to so-called Conditionalities, including SAPs. 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.

The IMF sometimes advocates “austerity programmes,” cutting public spending and increasing taxes even when the economy is weak, in order 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, criticizes these policies. 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.” If they do not look for a restructure they are looking at their resources to run out. A restructure of maybe how much they loan out or maybe even looking at the possibilities just trying to help countries when they need help for major things and not small and minor things. If they keep doing small help here and there it is just dwindling what they have and its just running what resources they have out.

Overseas Development Institute (ODI) research undertaken in 1980 pointed to five main criticisms of the IMF. Firstly, developed countries were seen to have a more dominant role and control over less developed countries (LDCs) primarily due to the Western bias towards a capitalist form of the world economy with professional staff being Western trained and believing in the efficacy of market-oriented policies.

Secondly, 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 Fund 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 payments deficits due to adverse changes in their terms of trade, with the Fund prescribing stabilisation programmes similar to those suggested for deficits caused by government over-spending. Faced with long-term, externally-generated disequilibria, the Group of 24 argued that LDCs should be allowed more time to adjust their economies and that the policies needed to achieve such adjustment are different from demand-management programmes devised primarily with internally generated disequilibria in mind.

The third criticism was that the effects of Fund policies were anti-developmental. The deflationary effects of IMF programmes quickly led to losses of output and employment in economies where incomes were low and unemployment was high. Moreover, it was sometimes claimed that the burden of the deflationary effects was borne disproportionately by the poor.

Fourthly is the accusation that harsh policy conditions were self-defeating where a vicious circle developed when members refused loans due to harsh conditionality, making their economy worse and eventually taking loans as a drastic medicine.

Lastly is the point that the Fund's policies lack a clear economic rationale. Its policy foundations were theoretical and unclear due to differing opinions and departmental rivalries whilst dealing with countries with widely varying economic circumstances.

ODI conclusions were that the Fund’s very nature of promoting market-oriented economic approach attracted unavoidable criticism, as LDC governments were likely to object when in a tight corner. Yet, on the other hand, the Fund could provide a ‘scapegoat service’ where governments could take loans as a last resort, whilst blaming international bankers for any economic downfall. The ODI conceded that the fund was to some extent insensitive to political aspirations of LDCs, while its policy conditions were inflexible.

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. Others attribute the crisis to Argentina’s misdesigned fiscal federalism, which caused subnational spending to increase rapidly. 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 an interview, 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."

The delay in the IMF’s response to any crisis, and the fact that it tends to only respond to them 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 analyze economic outcomes at the country level.

Support of military dictatorships

The role of the Bretton Woods institutions has been controversial since the late Cold War period, due to claims that the IMF policy makers supported military dictatorships friendly to American and European corporations and other anti-communist regimes. Critics also claim that the IMF is generally apathetic or hostile to their views of 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.

Impact on access to food

A number of civil society organizations have criticized the IMF’s policies for their impact on people’s access to food, particularly in developing countries. In October 2008, former U.S. president Bill Clinton presented a speech to the United Nations World Food Day, which criticized 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

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%.

In 2009, a book by Rick Rowden titled The Deadly Ideas of Neoliberalism: How the IMF has Undermined Public Health and the Fight Against AIDS, claimed that the IMF’s monetarist approach towards prioritizing price stability (low inflation) and fiscal restraint (low budget deficits) was unnecessarily restrictive and has prevented developing countries from being able to scale up long-term public investment as a percent of GDP in the underlying public health infrastructure. The book claimed the consequences have been chronically underfunded public health systems, leading to dilapidated health infrastructure, inadequate numbers of health personnel, and demoralizing working conditions that have fueled the “push factors” driving the brain drain of nurses migrating from poor countries to rich ones, all of which has undermined public health systems and the fight against HIV/AIDS in developing countries.

Impact on environment

IMF policies have been repeatedly criticized for making it difficult for indebted countries to avoid ecosystem-damaging projects that generate cash flow, in particular oil, coal, and forest-destroying lumber and agriculture projects. Ecuador for example had to defy IMF advice repeatedly in order to pursue the protection of its rain forests, though paradoxically this need was cited in IMF argument to support that country. The IMF acknowledged this paradox in a March 2010 staff position report which proposed the IMF Green Fund, a mechanism to issue Special Drawing Rights directly to pay for climate harm prevention and potentially other ecological protection as pursued generally by other environmental finance.

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

In the context of the May 2010 European banking crisis, some observers also noted that Spain and California, two troubled economies within Europe and the United States respectively, and also Germany, the primary and politically most fragile supporter of a euro currency bailout would benefit from IMF recognition of their leadership in green technology, and directly from Green Fund–generated demand for their exports, which might also improve their credit standing with international bankers.^{[citation needed]}

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.

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.

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 U.S. or Europeans, which combined represent the largest bloc of shareholders in the Fund. By contrast, 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.

EU ministers agreed on the candidacy of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Socialist Party MP and former finance minister in France, 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 Dominic 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 Rato, who retired on October 31, 2007.

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."

In April 2011, press reports linked the former United Kingdom prime minister Gordon Brown with the role as the next managing director of the International Monetary Fund. However, these reports received mixed reception. Ed Miliband, who succeeded Brown as the Labour Party’s leader after their 2010 general election defeat, backed Brown for the role as his handling of the global economic crisis three years earlier had been “outstanding.” However, the new Conservative prime minister David Cameron spoke of the possibility that he would veto Brown from taking the position.

The IMF announced on May 15, 2011 that John Lipsky had become acting managing director. This was because of Strauss-Kahn's arrest in connection with charges of sexually assaulting a New York room attendant. Strauss-Kahn subsequently resigned his position on May 18.

On June 28, 2011, Christine Lagarde was named Managing Director of the IMF, replacing Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

On June 14, the IMF announced two candidates had been shortlisted for the post. These were Agustín Carstens, governor of the Mexican central bank, and Christine Lagarde, French finance minister.

Early in the contest the world's largest developing countries, the BRIC nations, issued an unusual 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.

The Wall Street Journal noted that the U.S. faced a delicate dilemma in backing a candidate. On the one hand it had advocated for more emerging-market representation and governance reform, a position favoring Agustin Carstens. On the other hand, it would wish to maintain its hold on its appointment of the No. 2 spot at the fund and its selection of the head of the World Bank, a position favoring Christine Lagarde.

In the event, the U.S. came out in favour of Lagarde, along with the BRIC nations Brazil, Russia, India and China, and on June 28 Lagarde was accordingly confirmed Managing Director of the IMF for a five-year term, starting on July 5, 2011.

Dates	Name	Nationality
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 – May 18, 2011	Dominique Strauss-Kahn	France
July 5, 2011 –	Christine Lagarde	France

Departments

Europe

The head of the IMF's European department is António Borges of Portugal, former deputy governor of the Bank of Portugal. He was elected October 2010.

Security

The computer systems of the IMF were breached by hackers on 12 June 2011 after an assault lasting several months. The chief information officer of the IMF stated in an internal memo that they "have no reason to believe that any personal information was sought for fraud purposes." The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating the attacks, which officials from the IMF said was conducted by "hackers believed to be connected to a foreign government."

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 takes a look into the IMF and its tactics when it comes to providing financial help to endebted nations, taking a negative stand against the organization.

See also

• African Monetary Fund
• Bank for International Settlements
• Group of Thirty
• World Bank

Notes and references

Notes:

a.	^ Kosovo is the subject of a territorial dispute between the Republic of Serbia and the self-proclaimed Republic of Kosovo. The latter declared independence on 17 February 2008, while Serbia claims it as part of its own sovereign territory. Its independence is recognised by 87 UN member states.

References:

63. http://www.clarin.com/politica/gobierno/FMI-advirtio-sancion-Argentina-mostrar_0_349165280.html

Further reading

• Bordo, M. D. "The Bretton Woods International Monetary System: A Historical Overview", in "A Retrospective on the Bretton Woods System, edited by M. D. Bordo and B. Eichengreen. London:1993;
• Boughton, J. M. "Silent Revolution: The International Monetary Fund 1979-1989", Washington DC, 2001.
• James, H. "International Monetary Cooperation since Bretton Woods", Oxford, 1996.
• Joicey, N. and Pickford, S. "The International Monetary Fund and Global Economic Cooperation" in Nicholas Bayne and Stephen Woolcock, "The New Economic Diplomacy: Decision-Making and Negotiation in International Relations", (Ashgate Publishing, 2011).
• Keynes, J. M. "The Collected Writings, Vol.XXVI. Activies 1941-1946: Shaping the Post-War World: Bretton Woods and Reparations", Cambridge, 1980.
• Moschella, M. Governing Risk: The IMF and Global Financial Crises (Palgrave Macmillan; 2010).
• Skidelsky, R. "John Maynard Keynes: Fighting for Britain", London, 2000.
• Truman, E. Strengthening IMF Surveillance: A Comprehensive Proposal, Policy Brief 10-29, Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2010.
• Woods, N. "The Globalizers:The IMF, the World Bank, and Their Borrowers", Ithaca, 2006

External links

• Official website
• IFIWatchNet (Web resource for analysis and commentary critical of the IMF and similar institutions)
• IMF-Supported Macroeconomic Policies and the World Recession: A Look at Forty-One Borrowing Countries, from the Center for Economic and Policy Research, October 2009