Хэрэглэгч:EMongolia/Олон Улсын Валютын Сан

"IMF" үгээр энд холбогдлоо. Бусад утгыг, «IMF (салаа утга)»-с харна уу.

Загвар:Infobox central bank The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an international organization that oversees the global financial system by observing exchange rates and balance of payments, as well as offering financial and technical assistance. Its headquarters are located in Washington, D.C., USA.

Organization and purpose

Headquarters in Washington D.C.

The IMF describes itself as "an organization of 185 countries (Montenegro being the 185th, as of January 18 2007), 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 North Korea, Cuba, Andorra, Monaco, Liechtenstein, Tuvalu, and Nauru, all UN member states participate directly in the IMF. Some are represented by other member states on a 24-member Executive Board but all member countries are members of the IMF's Board of Governors. Vatican City, the Republic of China (Taiwan), the Palestinian Authority and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (Western Sahara) are the non-UN member entities not participating in the IMF, although the Palestinian Authority currently receives IMF technical assistance.

History

In the Great Depression of the 1930s, economic activity in the major industrial nations slumped. Ricardian comparative advantage states that all countries gain from trade without restrictions. It is noteworthy to mention that, although the "size of the pie" is enhanced according to this theory of free trade, improving all industries, when distributional concerns are taken into account, there are always industries that lose out even as others benefit in any given country. World trade declined sharply, as did employment and living standards in many countries.

As World War II came to a close, the leading allied countries considered various plans to restore order to international monetary relations, and at the Bretton Woods conference the IMF emerged. The founding members drafted a charter (or Articles of Agreement) of an international institution to oversee the international monetary system and to promote both the elimination of exchange restrictions relating to trade in goods and services, and the stability of exchange rates.

The IMF came into existence 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 1944 (see Box 2).

Today

From the end of World War II until the late-1970s, the capitalist world experienced unprecedented growth in real incomes. (Since then, the integration of China and Eastern and Central Europe into the capitalist system has added substantially to the growth of the system.) Within the capitalist system, the benefits of growth have not flowed equally to all (either within or among nations) but overall there has been an increase in prosperity that contrasts starkly with the conditions within capitalist countries during the interwar period. The lack of a recurring global depression is probably due to improvements in the conduct of international economic policies that have encouraged the growth of international trade and helped smooth the economic cycle of boom and bust.

In the decades since World War II, apart from rising prosperity, the world economy and monetary system have undergone other major changes that have increased the importance and relevance of the purposes served by the IMF, but that has also required the IMF to adapt and reform. Rapid advances in technology and communications have contributed to the increasing international integration of markets and to closer linkages among national economies. As a result, financial crises, when they erupt, now tend to spread more rapidly among countries.

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.

During April 2007 Ecuador announced its intention to withdraw from the IMF, followed by Venezuela which made this step public on April 30 2007. As of August 2007, both countries have continued their membership status.

Data Dissemination Systems

Файл:IMF DDS.png

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

Μ In 1995, the International Monetary Fund (MILF) 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 IMF 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. Holy fuck cakes who cares: 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 itself IMF members also contribute statistical data to the systems:

• Загвар:Country data Palestinian Authority – GDDS
• Хонконг – SDDS
• Европын Холбоо institutions:
  • the European Central Bank for the Eurozone – SDDS
  • Eurostat for the whole EU – SDDS, thus providing data from Кипр (not using any DDSystem on its own) and Мальта (using only GDDS on its own)

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.

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 SDRs. A member state cannot unilaterally increase its quota — increases must be approved of by the Executive Board. 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). Since then, its contribution has been allowed to be increased slightly further.

As of 2006, participating nations were discussing changes to the voting formula, to increase equity.

Assistance and reforms

The primary mission of the IMF is to provide financial assistance to countries that experience serious financial difficulties. Member states with balance of payments problems may request loans and/or organizational management of their national economies. In return, the countries are usually required to launch certain reforms, which have often been dubbed the "Washington Consensus". These reforms are generally required because countries with fixed exchange rate policies can 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 in their future. 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.

However, this approach is not without its critics, as described below. Many supporters of the IMF contend that some criticisms are the result of the fact that many people are not familiar with the operations and objectives of the IMF, and blame a lack of transparency within the IMF for this, as well as the dense nature of international finance in general. Suggestions for improving these understandings have included greater community outreach efforts, tighter accounting standards, possible regulatory oversight, and changes in the organizational structure of the IMF to include fewer economists, whom many fear are attempting to use developing countries as nothing more than lab rats. Some fear, however, that some of these reforms to the IMF itself introduce political considerations rather than economic considerations, many of which may have resulted in the financial crises in the first place. According to Ulrich Beck, the International Monetary Fund is an international risk community combating the threat of a global financial crisis.

Criticism

The role of the two Bretton Woods institutions has been controversial to some since the late Cold War period. Critics claim that IMF policy makers deliberately supported capitalistic 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. Others claim the IMF has little power to democratize sovereign states, although that is not its stated objective, which is to advise and promote financial stability. Arguments in favor of the IMF say that economic stability is a precursor to democracy.

Two criticisms from economists have been that financial aid is always bound to so-called "Conditionalities", including Structural Adjustment Programs. Conditionalities, it is claimed, 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.

Typically the IMF and its supporters advocate a Keynesian 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. Supply-side economists claim these Keynesian IMF policies are destructive to economic prosperity.

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, which is the opposite of Keynesian policy. 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. 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.

Complaints are also directed toward 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 favour of a world market price. Hence the fixed exchange rates of currencies tied to gold were switched to a floating rate, also based on market price and exchange. This largely came about because Petrodollars outside the United States were more than could be backed by the gold at Fort Knox under the fixed exchange rate system. The fixed rate system only served to limit the amount of assistance the organization could use to help debt-ridden countries. Current IMF rules prohibit members from linking their currencies to gold.

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 maldesigned 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 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.

Overall the IMF success record is perceived as limited. 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. The considerable delay in the IMF's response to any crisis, and the fact that it tends to only respond to 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.

Whatever the feelings people in the Western world have for the IMF, 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. This may largely be due to the fact that the media and textbooks in developing countries' schools describe the IMF as having a positive role in their countries, despite claims that there has been an increase in poverty, increase in the debt-burden, and a reduction of economic growth that IMF opponents argue its policies have resulted in. 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 the IMF.

The documentary Life and Debt 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 necessarily helpful to a third world economy.

Past managing directors

An unwritten rule establishes that the IMF's managing director must be European and that the president of the World Bank must be from the United States. This established practice is now 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 a monetary stake in the institution. Rarely does the board vote and pass issues contradicting the will of the US or Europeans. There have been some exceptions in the past. Dr. Mohamed Finaish from Libya, the Executive Director representing the majority of the Arab World and Pakistan, was a tireless defender of the developing nations' rights at the IMF. He stood steadfast in his beliefs and principles for fourteen years until his defeat in the 1992 elections to an Egyptian IMF Staff Member.

Mr Rodrigo Rato became the ninth Managing Director of the IMF on June 7 2004 and he is expected to resign his post in October, 2007, citing personal reasons. His replacement will once again come from Europe.

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.

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 – present	Rodrigo Rato	Spain

See also

• Third world debt
• Economics
• Special Drawing Rights
• Development aid
• Bretton Woods Institutions
• Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
• Globalization and Its Discontents
• Bancor
• Bank for International Settlements
• World Bank
• Inter-American Development Bank
• Bretton Woods system

References

• Jan Joost Teunissen and Age Akkerman (eds.) (2005). Helping the Poor? The IMF and Low-Income Countries. FONDAD. ISBN 90-74208-25-8. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help); External link in |title= (help)
• Dreher, Axel (2002). The Development and Implementation of IMF and World Bank Conditionality (PDF). HWWA. ISSN 1616-4814.
• Dreher, Axel (2004). "A Public Choice Perspective of IMF and World Bank Lending and Conditionality". Public Choice. 119 (3–4): 445–464.
• Dreher, Axel (2004). "The Influence of IMF Programs on the Re-election of Debtor Governments". Economics & Politics. 16 (1): 53–75.
• Dreher, Axel (2003). "The Influence of Elections on IMF Programme Interruptions". The Journal of Development Studies. 39 (6): 101–120.
• 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.

External links

• International Monetary Fund website
• Global Banking: The International Monetary Fund
• Finance & Development - A quarterly magazine of the IMF
• Annual Reports of the Executive Board
• World Economic Outlook Reports
• IMF Publications
• 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 University of Iowa research center, includes a 300 page E-book on the IMF and World Bank.
• Political Forecasting? The IMF’s Flawed Growth Projections for Argentina and Venezuela by David Rosnick and Mark Weisbrot, 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