International Monetary Fund (IMF)
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an international organization that promotes global economic growth and financial stability, encourages international trade and reduces poverty. The IMF collects massive amounts of aggregate data on national economies, international trade, and the global economy and provides economic forecasts. One of the IMF's most important functions is to make loans to countries experiencing economic distress to prevent or mitigate financial crises.
The IMF's website describes its mission as "to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world.
The IMF gets its money through quotas and subscriptions from its member countries. These contributions are based on the size of the country's economy, making the U.S., with the world's largest economy, the most significant contributor[Kenton, Cheng, Kazel ].
The IMF is headed by a board of governors, each representing one of the organization’s approximately 180 member states. The governors, usually their countries’ finance ministers or central bank directors, attend annual meetings on IMF issues. The fund’s day-to-day operations are administered by an executive board consisting of 24 executive directors who meet at least three times a week. Eight directors represent individual countries (China, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, and the United States). The other 16 represent the fund’s remaining members, grouped by world regions.
Because it makes most decisions by consensus, the executive board rarely conducts formal voting. The board is chaired by a managing director, who is appointed by the board for a renewable five-year term and supervises the fund’s staff of about 2,700 employees from more than 140 countries. The managing director is usually a European and—by tradition—not an American. The first female managing director, Christine Lagarde of France, was appointed in June 2011. [McQuillan]
Kenton, W., Cheng, M., Kazel, M. (2022). What is the International Monetary Fund (IMF)? Investopedia. Retrieved from: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/imf.asp
McQuillan, L. (2023). International Monetary Fund. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved from: https://www.britannica.com/topic/International-Monetary-Fund