IMF

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, countries attempted to shore up their failing economies by sharply raising barriers to foreign trade, devaluing their currencies to compete against each other for export markets, and curtailing their citizens' freedom to hold foreign exchange. These attempts proved to be self-defeating. World trade declined sharply,and employment and living standards plummeted in many countries.This breakdown in international monetary cooperation led the IMF's founders to plan an institution charged with overseeing the international monetary system—the system of exchange rates and international payments that enables countries and their citizens to buy goods and services from each other. The new global entity would ensure exchange rate stability and encourage its member countries to eliminate exchange restrictions that hindered trade.

 The Bretton Woods agreement

The IMF was conceived in July 1944, when representatives of 45 countries meeting in the town of Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in the northeastern United States, agreed on a framework for international economic cooperation, to be established after the Second World War.  They believed that such a framework was necessary to avoid a repetition of the disastrous economic policies that had contributed to the Great Depression.

The IMF came into formal existence in December 1945, when its first 29 member countries signed its Articles of Agreement. It began operations on March 1, 1947. Later that year, France became the first country to borrow from the IMF.

The IMF's membership began to expand in the late 1950s and during the 1960s as many African countries became independent and applied for membership. But the Cold War limited the Fund's membership, with most countries in the Soviet sphere of influence not joining.

Par value system

The countries that joined the IMF between 1945 and 1971 agreed to keep their exchange rates (the value of their currencies in terms of the U.S. dollar and, in the case of the United States, the value of the dollar in terms of gold) pegged at rates that could be adjusted only to correct a "fundamental disequilibrium" in the balance of payments, and only with the IMF's agreement. This par value system—also known as the Bretton Woods system—prevailed until 1971, when the U.S. government suspended the convertibility of the dollar (and dollar reserves held by other governments) into gold.

By the early 1960s, the U.S. dollar's fixed value against gold, under the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates, was seen as overvalued. A sizable increase in domestic spending on President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs and a rise in military spending caused by the Vietnam War gradually worsened the overvaluation of the dollar.

End of Bretton Woods system

The system dissolved between 1968 and 1973. In August 1971, U.S. President Richard Nixon announced the "temporary" suspension of the dollar's convertibility into gold. While the dollar had struggled throughout most of the 1960s within the parity established at Bretton Woods, this crisis marked the breakdown of the system. An attempt to revive the fixed exchange rates failed, and by March 1973 the major currencies began to float against each other.

Since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, IMF members have been free to choose any form of exchange arrangement they wish (except pegging their currency to gold): allowing the currency to float freely, pegging it to another currency or a basket of currencies, adopting the currency of another country, participating in a currency bloc, or forming part of a monetary union.

Oil shocks

Many feared that the collapse of the Bretton Woods system would bring the period of rapid growth to an end. In fact, the transition to floating exchange rates was relatively smooth, and it was certainly timely: flexible exchange rates made it easier for economies to adjust to more expensive oil, when the price suddenly started going up in October 1973. Floating rates have facilitated adjustments to external shocks ever since.

The IMF responded to the challenges created by the oil price shocks of the 1970s by adapting its lending instruments. To help oil importers deal with anticipated current account deficits and inflation in the face of higher oil prices, it set up the first of two oil facilities.

Helping poor countries

From the mid-1970s, the IMF sought to respond to the balance of payments difficulties confronting many of the world's poorest countries by providing concessional financing through what was known as the Trust Fund. In March 1986, the IMF created a new concessional loan program called the Structural Adjustment Facility. The SAF was succeeded by the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility in December 1987.

The oil shocks of the 1970s, which forced many oil-importing countries to borrow from commercial banks, and the interest rate increases in industrial countries trying to control inflation led to an international debt crisis.

During the 1970s, Western commercial banks lent billions of "recycled" petrodollars, getting deposits from oil exporters and lending those resources to oil-importing and developing countries, usually at variable, or floating, interest rates. So when interest rates began to soar in 1979, the floating rates on developing countries' loans also shot up. Higher interest payments are estimated to have cost the non-oil-producing developing countries at least $22 billion during 1978–81. At the same time, the price of commodities from developing countries slumped because of the recession brought about by monetary policies. Many times, the response by developing countries to those shocks included expansionary fiscal policies and overvalued exchange rates, sustained by further massive borrowings.

When a crisis broke out in Mexico in 1982, the IMF coordinated the global response, even engaging the commercial banks. It realized that nobody would benefit if country after country failed to repay its debts.

The IMF's initiatives calmed the initial panic and defused its explosive potential. But a long road of painful reform in the debtor countries, and additional cooperative global measures, would be necessary to eliminate the problem.

The fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 enabled the IMF to become a (nearly) universal institution. In three years, membership increased from 152 countries to 172, the most rapid increase since the influx of African members in the 1960s.

In order to fulfill its new responsibilities, the IMF's staff expanded by nearly 30 percent in six years. The Executive Board increased from 22 seats to 24 to accommodate Directors from Russia and Switzerland, and some existing Directors saw their constituencies expand by several countries.

The IMF played a central role in helping the countries of the former Soviet bloc transition from central planning to market-driven economies. This kind of economic transformation had never before been attempted, and sometimes the process was less than smooth. For most of the 1990s, these countries worked closely with the IMF, benefiting from its policy advice, technical assistance, and financial support.

By the end of the decade, most economies in transition had successfully graduated to market economy status after several years of intense reforms, with many joining the European Union in 2004.

Asian Financial Crisis

In 1997, a wave of financial crises swept over East Asia, from Thailand to Indonesia to Korea and beyond. Almost every affected country asked the IMF for both financial assistance and for help in reforming economic policies. Conflicts arose on how best to cope with the crisis, and the IMF came under criticism that was more intense and widespread than at any other time in its history.

From this experience, the IMF drew several lessons that would alter its responses to future events. First, it realized that it would have to pay much more attention to weaknesses in countries’ banking sectors and to the effects of those weaknesses on macroeconomic stability. In 1999, the IMF—together with the World Bank—launched the Financial Sector Assessment Program and began conducting national assessments on a voluntary basis. Second, the Fund realized that the institutional prerequisites for successful liberalization of international capital flows were more daunting than it had previously thought. Along with the economics profession generally, the IMF dampened its enthusiasm for capital account liberalization. Third, the severity of the contraction in economic activity that accompanied the Asian crisis necessitated a re-evaluation of how fiscal policy should be adjusted when a crisis was precipitated by a sudden stop in financial inflows.

Debt relief for poor countries

During the 1990s, the IMF worked closely with the World Bank to alleviate the debt burdens of poor countries. The Initiative for Heavily Indebted Poor Countries was launched in 1996, with the aim of ensuring that no poor country faces a debt burden it cannot manage. In 2005, to help accelerate progress toward the United NationsMillennium Development Goals (MDGs), the HIPC Initiative was supplemented by theMultilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI).

The IMF has been on the front lines of lending to countries to help boost the global economy as it suffers from a deep crisis not seen since the Great Depression.

For most of the first decade of the 21st century, international capital flows fueled a global expansion that enabled many countries to repay money they had borrowed from the IMF and other official creditors and to accumulate foreign exchange reserves.

The global economic crisis that began with the collapse of mortgage lending in the United States in 2007, and spread around the world in 2008 was preceded by large imbalances in global capital flows.

Global capital flows fluctuated between 2 and 6 percent of world GDP during 1980-95, but since then they have risen to 15 percent of GDP. In 2006, they totaled $7.2 trillion—more than a tripling since 1995. The most rapid increase has been experienced by advanced economies, but emerging markets and developing countries have also become more financially integrated.

The founders of the Bretton Woods system had taken it for granted that private capital flows would never again resume the prominent role they had in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the IMF had traditionally lent to members facing current account difficulties.

The latest global crisis uncovered fragility in the advanced financial markets that soon led to the worst global downturn since the Great Depression. Suddenly, the IMF was inundated with requests for stand-by arrangements and other forms of financial and policy support.

The international community recognized that the IMF’s financial resources were as important as ever and were likely to be stretched thin before the crisis was over. With broad support from creditor countries, the Fund’s lending capacity was tripled to around $750 billion. To use those funds effectively, the IMF overhauled its lending policies, including by creating a flexible credit line for countries with strong economic fundamentals and a track record of successful policy implementation. Other reforms, including ones tailored to help low-income countries, enabled the IMF to disburse very large sums quickly, based on the needs of borrowing countries and not tightly constrained by quotas, as in the past.

For more on the ideas that have shaped the IMF from its inception until the late 1990s, take a look at James Boughton's "The IMF and the Force of History: Ten Events and Ten Ideas that Have Shaped the Institution."

The IMF works to foster global growth and economic stability. It provides policy advice and financing to members in economic difficulties and also works with developing nations to help them achieve macroeconomic stability and reduce poverty.

The IMF, also known as the “Fund,” was conceived at a United Nations conference convened in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States, in July 1944. The 44 governments represented at that conference sought to build a framework for economic cooperation that would avoid a repetition of the vicious circle of competitive devaluations that had contributed to the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The IMF’s responsibilities: The IMF's primary purpose is to ensure the stability of the international monetary system—the system of exchange rates and international payments that enables countries (and their citizens) to transact with one other. This system is essential for promoting sustainable economic growth, increasing living standards, and reducing poverty. The Fund’s mandatehas recently been clarified and updated to cover the full range of macroeconomic and financial sector issues that bear on global stability.

§     Membership: 188 countries §     Headquarters: Washington, D.C. §     Executive Board: 24 Directors representing countries or groups of countries §     Staff: Approximately 2,475 from 156 countries §     Total quotas: US$360 billion (as of 8/9/12) §     Additional pledged or committed resources: US$1 trillion §     Loans committed (as of 8/9/12): US$243 billion, of which US$186 billion have not                              been drawn §     Biggest borrowers (amount agreed as of 8/9/12): Greece, Portugal, Ireland §     Biggest precautionary loans (amount agreed as of 8/9/12): Mexico, Poland,                         Colombia §     Surveillance consultations: Consultations concluded for 128 countries in FY2011 and                              for 117 countries in FY2012 §     Technical assistance: Field delivery in FY2011—198.2 person years §     Transparency: In 2011, about 90 percent of Article IV and program-related staff                          reports and policy papers were published §     Original aims: Article I of the Articles of Agreement sets out the IMF’s main goals: §  promoting international monetary cooperation; §  facilitating the expansion and balanced growth of international trade; §  promoting exchange stability; §  assisting in the establishment of a multilateral system of payments; and §  making resources available (with adequate safeguards) to members experiencing balance of payments difficulties

Surveillance: To maintain stability and prevent crises in the international monetary system, the IMF reviews country policies, as well as national, regional, and global economic and financial developments through a formal system known as surveillance. Under the surveillance framework, the IMF provides advice to its 188 member countries, encouraging policies that foster economic stability, reduce vulnerability to economic and financial crises, and raise living standards. It provides regular assessment of global prospects in its World Economic Outlook, financial markets in its Global Financial Stability Report, and public finance developments in its Fiscal Monitor, and publishes a series of regional economic outlooks. The Fund’s Executive Board has been considering a range of options to enhance multilateral, financial, and bilateral surveillance, including to better integrate the three; improve our understanding of spillovers and the assessment of emerging and potential risks; and strengthen the traction of IMF policy advice.

The key findings and policy advice from the various multilateral products are pulled together in Consolidated Multilateral Surveillance Reports. The Executive Board of the IMF recently adopted a new Decision on Bilateral and Multilateral Surveillance, also known as the Integrated Surveillance Decision. The decision provides guidance to the Fund and member countries on their roles and responsibilities in surveillance and will take effect on January 18, 2013. More broadly, in response to the Triennial Surveillance Review completed in October 2011, efforts are underway to better integrate multilateral, financial, and bilateral surveillance, including through: additional work on interconnections and spillovers; greater use of in-depth risk assessments; renewed emphasis on external stability—a pilot External Sector Report was published in July; and strengthening the traction of IMF policy advice.

Financial assistance: IMF financing provides member countries the breathing room they need to correct balance of payments problems. A policy program supported by IMF financing is designed by the national authorities in close cooperation with the IMF, and continued financial support is conditioned on effective implementation of this program. In an early response to the recent global economic crisis, the IMF strengthened its lending capacity and approved amajor overhaul of the mechanisms for providing financial support in April 2009, with further reforms adopted in August 2010 and December 2011.

In the most recent reforms, IMF lending instruments were improved further to provide flexible crisis prevention tools to a broad range of members with sound fundamentals, policies, and institutional policy frameworks. In low-income countries, the IMF doubled loan access limits and is boosting its lending to the world’s poorer countries, with interest rates set at zero through end-2012.

SDRs: The IMF issues an international reserve asset known as Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) that can supplement the official reserves of member countries. Two allocations in August and September 2009 increased the outstanding stock of SDRs almost ten-fold to total about SDR 204 billion (US$312 billion). Members can also voluntarily exchange SDRs for currencies among themselves. In a recent paper, IMF staff explores options to enhance the role of the SDR to promote stability of the international monetary system.

Technical assistance: The IMF provides technical assistance and training to help member countries strengthen their capacity to design and implement effective policies. Technical assistance is offered in several areas, including tax policy and administration, expenditure management, monetary and exchange rate policies, banking and financial system supervision and regulation, legislative frameworks, and statistics.

Resources: The IMF’s resources are provided by its member countries, primarily through payment of quotas, which broadly reflect each country’s economic size. At the April 2009 G-20 Summit, world leaders pledged to support a tripling of the IMF's lending resources from about US$250 billion to US$750 billion. To deliver on this pledge, the then current and new participants in the New Arrangements to Borrow (NAB) agreed to expand the NAB to about US$570 billion, which became effective on March 11, 2011 following completion of the ratification process by NAB participants. When concluding the 14th General Review of Quotas in December 2010, Governors agreed to double the IMF’s quota resources to approximately US$730 billion and a major realignment of quota shares among members. When the quota increase becomes effective, there will be a corresponding rollback in NAB resources. In mid-2012, member countries announced additional pledges to increase the IMF’s resources to $456 billion to help strengthen global economic and financial stability.

Historically, the annual expenses of running the Fund have been met mainly by interest receipts on outstanding loans, but the membership recently agreed to adopt a new income model based on a range of revenue sources better suited to the diverse activities of the Fund.

Governance and organization: The IMF is accountable to the governments of its member countries. At the top of its organizational structure is the Board of Governors, which consists of one Governor and one Alternate Governor from each member country. The Board of Governors meets once each year at theIMF-World Bank Annual Meetings. Twenty-four of the Governors sit on the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) and normally meet twice each year.

The day-to-day work of the IMF is overseen by its 24-member Executive Board, which represents the entire membership; this work is guided by the IMFC and supported by the IMF staff. In a package of reforms approved by the Governorsin December 2010, the Articles of Agreement will be amended so as to facilitate a move to a more representative, all-elected Executive Board. The Managing Director is the head of the IMF staff and Chairman of the Executive Board, and is assisted by four Deputy Managing Directors.