International Monetary Fund
International Monetary Fund
| Noun | 1. | International Monetary Fund - a United Nations agency to promote trade by increasing the exchange stability of the major currencies |
| 单词 | international monetary fund | |||
| 释义 | International Monetary FundInternational Monetary Fund
International Monetary FundInternational Monetary Fund(IMF), specialized agency of the United Nations, established in 1945. It was planned at the Bretton Woods Conference (1944), and its headquarters are in Washington, D.C. There is close collaboration between it and the International Bank for Reconstruction and DevelopmentInternational Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD)(IBRD), independent specialized agency of the United Nations, with headquarters at Washington, D.C.; one of five closely associated development institutions (also including the International Center for Settlement of ..... Click the link for more information. . Its primary mission is to ensure stability in the international monetary system. The IMF provides policy advice and financing to member countries with economic problems. The organization, using a fund subscribed by the member nations, purchases foreign currencies on application from its members so as to discharge international indebtedness and stabilize exchange rates. The IMF currency reserve units are called Special Drawing RightsSpecial Drawing Rights (SDRs), type of international monetary reserve currency established (1968) by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Created in response to worries concerning the limitations of gold and dollars as the sole means of settling international accounts, SDRs ..... Click the link for more information. (SDRs); from 1974 to 1980 the value of SDRs was based on the currencies of 16 leading trading nations. Since 1980 it has been reevaluated every five years and based on the relative international economic importance of the British pound sterling, Chinese yuan (added in 2016), the European Union euro (formerly the French franc and German mark), the Japanese yen, and the U.S. dollar. To facilitate international trade and reduce inequities in exchange, the fund has limited power to set the par value of currencies. Members are provided with technical assistance in making monetary transactions. In 1995 the fund moved to increase disclosure requirements of countries borrowing money and at the same time created an emergency bailout fund for countries in financial crisis. IMF was criticized in 1998 for exacerbating the Asian financial crisis, through the fund's decision to require Asian nations to raise their interest rates to record levels. During the international financial crisis of the early 21st cent., the IMF provided loans and access to credit of more than $100 billion to developing countries that were affected by falling demand for their exports and other financial problems. IMF support and financing was also critical to financial rescue plans for several European Union members in the early 2010s. Changes effective in 2016 raised the status of the four major emerging market nations, Brazil, China, India, and Russia, including them among the IMF's top ten shareholders. The fund is ruled by a board of governors, with one representative from each nation. The board of governors elects an executive board of 24 representatives to direct regular operations; the executive board selects and is chaired by the managing director, who also heads the IMF's staff. There are 189 members in the IMF. BibliographySee studies by H. G. Grubel (1970), T. Agmon et al., ed. (1984); R. D. Hormats (1987), T. Ferguson (1988), E. P. McLellan, ed. (2002), D. Vines and C. L. Gilbert, ed. (2004), E. M. Truman, ed. (2006), G. Bird (2003), G. Bird and D. Rowlands, ed. (2 vol., 2007), and E. Conway (2015). International Monetary FundInternational Monetary FundThe International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that seeks to promote international monetary cooperation and to stimulate international trade. The IMF, which in 2003 had 184 nation-members, has worked to stabilize world currencies and to develop programs of economic adjustment for nations that require economic reform. The IMF was created in 1944 at the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, held at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. It first began operation in 1947, from its headquarters in Washington, D.C., with a fund of $9 billion in currency, of which the United States contributed almost a third. The creation of the IMF was seen as a way to prevent retaliatory currency devaluations and trade restrictions, which were seen as a major cause of the worldwide depression prior to World War II. Membership is open to countries willing to abide by terms established by the board of governors, which is composed of a representative from each member nation. General terms include obligations to avoid manipulating exchange rates, abstain from discriminatory currency practices, and refrain from imposing restrictions on the making of payments and currency transfers necessary to foreign trade. The voting power of the governors is allocated according to the size of the quota of each member. The term quota refers to the IMF unit of account, which is based on each member's relative position in the world economy. This position is measured by the size of the country's economy, foreign trade, and relative importance in the international monetary system. Once a quota is set by the IMF, the country must deposit with the organization, as a subscription, an amount equal to the size of the quota. Up to three-fourths of a subscription may consist of the currency of the subscribing nation. Each subscription forms part of the reserve available to countries suffering from balance-of-payment problems. When a member has a balance-of-payment problem, it may apply to the IMF for needed foreign currency from the reserve derived from its quota. The member may use this foreign exchange for up to five years to help solve its problems, and then return the currency to the IMF pool of resources. The IMF offers below-market rates of interest for using these funds. The member country whose currency is used receives most of the interest. A small amount goes to the IMF for operating expenses. In its early years the IMF directed its major programs toward maintaining fixed exchange rates linked to the U.S. dollar, which in turn could be converted at a standard rate into gold. Present IMF policy emphasizes an orderly adjustment of currency exchange rates to reflect underlying economic forces. Special attention has been given to the needs of developing countries, in the form of programs to provide long-term assistance to cover foreign exchange demands necessitated by high import prices, declining export earnings, or development programs. In appropriate circumstances the IMF may impose conditions on the use of IMF resources to encourage recipient countries to make needed economic reforms. Since 1982 the IMF has concentrated on the problems of developing nations. It has gone beyond its own resources, encouraging additional lending from commercial banks. The IMF has also established new programs, using funds from its richer members, to provide money in larger amounts and for longer periods than those granted under the quota-driven lending procedures. It works closely with the World Bank on these and other international monetary issues. Starting in the 1990s, the IMF faced enormous economic challenges propelled by the increasing globalization of the world economy. Among the problems were the need to help a number of countries make the transition from a centrally-planned economic system to a market-oriented one, reducing turbulence in emerging financial markets such as Asia and Latin America, and promoting economic growth in the poorest nations. The IMF responded with a number of initiatives including creation of a loan fund to ensure sufficient funds to deal with major financial crises, a new approach to reducing poverty in low-income countries, and the Supplemental Reserve Facility created in 1997 specifically to help countries deal with large short-term financing needs resulting from a sudden reduction in capital outflows due to loss of market confidence. Despite these moves, the IMF in the late 1990s and early 2000s faced an increasing volume of world-wide criticism and protest against its fiscal policies. A number of economists and other critics charged that IMF loan programs imposed on governments of developing countries resulted in severe economic pain for the populations of those countries, that IMF policies were poorly designed and often aggravated economic conditions in countries experiencing debt or currency crises, and that the IMF has forced countries to borrow foreign capital in a manner that adversely affects them. In 2000, the managing director and members of the IMF agreed on several governing principles including the promotion of sustained non-inflationary economic growth, encouraging the stability of the international finance system, focusing on core macroeconomic and financial areas and being an open institution that learns from experience and continually adapts to changing circumstances. Further readingsInternational Monetary Fund. Available online at <www.imf.org> (accessed July 27, 2003). Rogoff, Kenneth. 2003. "The IMF Strikes Back." Foreign Policy (January 1). Cross-referencesInternational Law; United Nations; World Bank. International Monetary FundInternational Monetary Fund (IMF)International Monetary FundInternational Monetary Fund (IMF)International Monetary Fund (IMF).The IMF was set up as a result of the United Nations Bretton Woods Agreement of 1944 to help stabilize world currencies, lower trade barriers, and help developing nations pay off debt. The IMF's activities are funded by developed nations and are sometimes the subject of intense criticism, either by the nations the IMF is designed to help, the nations footing the bill, or both. International Monetary Fund (IMF)an international organization established in 1947 to promote, alongside the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (now the WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION), the expansion of INTERNATIONAL TRADE in a way consistent with the maintenance of BALANCE OF PAYMENTS equilibrium by individual member countries. This has involved the Fund in negotiating the removal of restrictions (such as FOREIGN EXCHANGE CONTROLS) on the convertibility of currencies, the establishment of ‘orderly’ EXCHANGE RATES between members' currencies and the provision of borrowing facilities and INTERNATIONAL RESERVES to members in balance of payments difficulties.Up to the 1970s the IMF supervized a FIXED EXCHANGE RATE SYSTEM and established ‘fixed’ pivotal values for members' currencies for concluding trade and capital transactions. Countries could devalue or revalue their currency to a new fixed rate when their balance of payments situation warranted it, subject to Fund negotiation and approval. This procedure ensured that currency realignments were decided by multilateral agreement rather than initiated as a unilateral act. In the early 1970s, however, with a continued weakening of the US dollar, the pivotal currency in the Fund's operations, and the onset of a world recession, a large number of currencies were ‘floated’ to provide a greater degree of exchange rate flexibility (see FLOATING EXCHANGE RATE SYSTEM). As a result of these developments the Fund has lost formal control over exchange rate movements, but member countries are still obliged, in theory, to maintain orderly exchange rates, avoiding in particular the manipulation of their exchange rates to disadvantage trade partners. The Fund's resources consist of a pool of foreign currencies (see FOREIGN EXCHANGE) and international reserve assets (excluding gold, however) subscribed by its members. Each country is allocated a ‘subscription quota’, weighted according to its economic status, and is required to pay 75% of its quota in its own currency and the remainder in international reserve assets. Included in the Fund's stock of reserve assets is the SPECIAL DRAWING RIGHT (SDR) unit, an asset which the Fund itself creates and holds in the form of a book-keeping entry (i.e. unlike currencies, SDRs have no tangible life of their own), and which is valued in terms of a weighted average of five major currencies. Countries needing extra resources over and above their own nationally-held reserves to finance a balance of payments deficit may borrow (i.e. exercise their ‘drawing rights’ on) the currencies they require from the Fund. A substantial proportion of these borrowings, however, are subject to the Fund's ‘conditionality’ rules, whereby the Fund stipulates the measures a member must implement to remove its payments deficit. Borrowings are normally required to be repaid within three to five years, but the INTERNATIONAL DEBT problem has not only forced the Fund to ‘roll-over’ credits but has led to the establishment of various new facilities to accommodate its poorer members. See GROUP OF 7. International Monetary Fund (IMF)a multinational institution set up in 1947 (following the Bretton Woods Conference, 1944) to supervise the operation of a new international monetary regime - the ADJUSTABLE-PEG EXCHANGE RATE SYSTEM. The IMF is based in Washington DC (USA) and currently has a membership of 181 countries. The Fund seeks to maintain cooperative and orderly currency arrangements between member countries, with the aim of promoting increased INTERNATIONAL TRADE and BALANCE OF PAYMENTS EQUILIBRIUM. The Fund is active in two main areas:
International Monetary Fund
Synonyms for International Monetary Fund
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