Talk:International Monetary Fund

1) The World Bank and the World Bank Group are not exactly the same.

2) The IMF is not part of the World Bank nor the World Bank Group.

See http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTABOUTUS/0,,contentMDK%3A20046275~menuPK%3A48380~pagePK%3A43912~piPK%3A44037~theSitePK%3A29708,00.html

Bias

Quotes section and other areas seem to be overly biased against the IMF.

IMF is keynesianistic?

I just don't have the time or language skill or whatsoever to rework the article but want to make an addition:

I thought the IMF favours supply-side economics and does not follow a keynesianistic approach. At least that is what I had kept in my mind after reading Joseph Stiglitz' Globalization and it's discontents (on german) where Stiglitz (former chief economist of the world bank) critisized the IMF as imposing a too restrictive policy on countries the IMF gives loans to. In general, I think it is safe to say that the IMF follows "neoliberal" strategies (e.g. of the washington consensus) and thus is affiliated with monetarism. And in my personal experience of economic policies neoliberalism and monetarism are strongly affiliated with supply-side economics.

Veto

I've read that US has sole veto power in IMF, can anyone confirm? Mir 01:49, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, there is a link to an article of a guy who claim the same thing

"There have been some minor adjustments since, but the major developed countries run the show, with only one country, the United States, having effetive veto" (Stiglitz 2003:12). -From 2003 Edition of Globalization and Its Discontents. Alex van Schaick 18:23, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm going back a bit here by commenting on this, but whilst doing my A-level Geography coursework I read in a book on globalisation ('Globalisation', Guinness, P., Hodder & Stoughton, 2003) that this is because the USA holds 17% of the voting power (because of the size of its quota). As any major change to IMF policy requires 85% backing the USA is able to block by itself any proposed change it might not like. I wondered if anyone had any more up to date information on this? - Sophie, 17th January 2006.

General Arrangements to Borrow

Some day, when someone have time we need to explicitly include a couple of paragraphs of how the fund operates. ie use of General Arrangements to Borrow, Gold Reserve and Special Drawing Rights. A mention of the fact that members are represented by the country's finance minister would help.

• I would be interested in working with wiki editors on clarifying how IMF operates on these discussion pages. Personally, I find the wiki method of trial/error, edit/delete cumbersome & tiring. Would be interested in hearing from administrators willing to help. Thnx nobs

Keynesian IMF?

In answer to the Keynesian - neo-liberal debate above: The IMF was instituted in and operated as a short-term credit fund for exchange rate stabilization throughout the Keynesian Welfare State era of 1945 - ~1971. With the removal of the fixed exchange rate system in the early 70s - the orignal role for the IMF was largely defunct. As neo-liberalism took hold in the US and Western Europe through the 70s and 80s, the IMFs role effectively switched to a generic creditor - loaning funds to 'developing' nations on the condition that they restructured their economies in line with neo-liberal and classical economic ideology. Arguably there has been a qualification of this stance with the recent HIPC initiatives, but it is safe to conclude that the IMF remains a neo-liberal institution, much removed from its original mandate.

Tverbeek: Good edit. I agree.Nobs 20:37, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Comment: I dont have time to rework the article either, but in the early 1980s the IMF was purged of its Keynesian elements as far as I know. It most certainly is not a Keynesian institution: although my understanding is limited,its pretty clear that Keynesian economics advocates deficit spending in order to stimulate demand during a depression. The IMF is deadset against such policies and Stiglitz's Globalization and Its Discontents is pretty much attacking the IMF on those grounds.

Alex van Schaick 18:18, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

link to wiktionary

I just added a link to wiktionary after the word 'overdraft' (way at the end) because I had to look it up. The reason is that the English version of wikipedia is of course not just for native English speakers (if only because (at the moment) it is the biggest version of wikipedia). I know there's also a simplified English version, but for people like me, who know English well enough to understand almost everything in normal English, that is of course not the preferred choice.

I'd say that if I (or someone with my command of the English language) need to look up a word to understand the article, it deserves a link to wiktionary. Are there any rules on this? Also, I'm not sure I've made the link the right way.

DirkvdM 08:07, 2005 Apr 11 (UTC)

I reformatted the link. In general, you can link to witkionary like this: [[Wiktionary:Overdraft]]. However, I'm not sure if there's a wiki policy on formatting links like that. [[Wiktionary:Overdraft]] renders as Wiktionary:Overdraft. I thought that was ugly, so I tried [[Wiktionary:Overdraft|overdraft]], which renders as overdraft. However, this version looks just like a wikipedia link, which isn't necessarily a good thing. Do we want wikipedia and wiktionary links to look the same? That's why I settled on ([[Wiktionary:Overdraft|definition]]), which renders as (definition). I'm now going to find somewhere to post a question about the nature/formatting of interwiki links... b/c it there certainly needs to be a policy.Feco 08:36, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ignore all of that above. The page now has the correct wikistyle for interwiki links. I should've looked a little harder before messing around with the styles above. See Wikipedia:How_to_link_to_Wikimedia_projects for more info. Feco

IMF as a Lending Insitution

The article as it is written repeatedly describes the IMF as an International lending instiution. While in recent years the IMF has gotten into the lending business in a limited way(only to assist debtor nations in managing their foreign debt), lending is not the IMF's primary function. Here are samples within the text where this assumption is made:

responsible for managing the global financial system and for providing loans

the World Bank, its twin organization

In order to gain access to IMF loans

IMF was instituted in and operated as a short-term credit fund

IMFs role effectively switched to a generic creditor - loaning funds to 'developing' nations

criticisms from economists have been that financial aid is always bound to so-called "Conditionalities"

limit the amount of money that the organization could use to help debt-ridden countries

IMF interventions aggravate the poverty and the debts

While it was created to help stabilize the global economy, since 1980 over 100 countries have experienced a banking collapse

There is much confusion about the difference between the IMF and its twin organisation the World Bank. On the large scale of things the IMF and World Bank play essentially the same role

Since the IMF is not really a bank, it doesn’t give loans as such. Rather, it has a pool of money from which member countries can borrow when they need to stabilise their currency quickly"

While much of this criticism is valid, there is little discussion of the IMF's purpose. The section header Criticism is very good, but it curiously mingles a discussion of monetarism and exchange rates with lending. Some separation of topics needs to be done.

I would be interested in working with editors to resolve some of the issues.--nobs

We really need this picture on the IMF page

I googled around for the picture the quote below refers to, but i am disappointed i wantn't lucky. I do however think collectively, we wikipedias can eventually find it. The quote is a word to word from Globalization and its Discontents page 40.

"All too often, the Fund's approach to the developing countries has had the feel of a colonial ruler. A picture is worth a thousand words, and a single picture snapped in 1998, shown thoughout the world, has engraved itself in the minds of millions, particularly those in the former colonies. The IMF managing director, Michel Camdessus, a short, neatly dressed former French treasury bureaucrat, who once claimed to be a socialist, is standing with a stern face and crossed arms over the seated and humiliated president of Indonesia. The hapless president was forced, in effect, to turn over economic sovereignty of his country to IMF in return for the aid his country needed. In the end ironically, much of the money went not to help Indonesia but to bail out the "colonial power's" private sector creditors.

Defenders of Camdessus claim the photograph was unfair, that he did not realise that it was being taken and that it was viewed out of context. But that is the point........."

You get the reason i think we need this picture. This book is way cool that i firmly believe it is the best value i have ever got from any book i have ever bought.

Difference Between IMF and World Bank

Anon reverted this section & it's placed here for disccussion.

There is much confusion about the difference between the IMF and its sister organisation the World Bank. The IMF keeps account of trade balances between member states, basically who owes whom how much, as an independent auditor. The World Bank on the other hand, gives more long term loans for more general purposes. What it does, as an investment bank, is essentially to intermediate between lenders and borrowers. It sells bonds to corporations, individuals, and sometimes governments, and lends that money to borrowing governments.

The IMF was originally founded to stabilise countries’ currencies in relation to each other, and to oversee the currency exchange market. Since the IMF is not really a bank, it doesn’t give loans as such. Rather, it has a pool of money from which member countries can borrow when they need to stabilise their currency quickly. This can be compared with an overdraft (Wiktionary - Entry on overdraft) on a current account. All loans from the IMF must be paid back within 5 years.

Asian financial crisis

I think we need to add asian experience under criticism of IMF. After all, Asian countries that received aid from IMF suffer deeper recession than those that refused the aid, i.e. Malaysia and Taiwan (or was it South Korea?) recovered somewhat faster than the rest. __earth 18:29, July 30, 2005 (UTC)

John Maynard Keynes's opposition to the IMF

I've changed this sentence:

The principal architects of the IMF at the Bretton Woods Conference were Fabian Society member John Maynard Keynes and the Assistant Secretary of the United States Treasury, Harry Dexter White.

According to [1], "Keynes was, in fact, its most prominent opponent". Palefire 12:58, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

The truth is somewhere in between. What the IMF turned out to be was not entirely along the lines of Keynes's proposals, but it was vaguely in that direction. Essentially, Keynes wanted an even more radically centralized IMF, complete with a central bank for the world, the Bancor. The final IMF proposal that was accepted was much less radical than that, but it wouldn't be accurate to say that Keynes opposed it either---it contained many of his ideas, but simply didn't go nearly as far as he would've liked. --Delirium 22:11, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Initial MassFunction

Although the Initial Mass Function is still a stub, there is a ambiguity between that article and this one... Both canbe referred to as IMF.

Article Vandalized

This article has been vandalized.