The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world." Formed in 1944, started on 27 December 1945, at the Bretton Woods Conference primarily by the ideas of Harry Dexter White and John Maynard Keynes, it came into formal existence in 1945 with 29 member countries and the goal of reconstructing the international monetary system. It now plays a central role in the management of balance of payments difficulties and international financial crises. Countries contribute funds to a pool through a quota system from which countries experiencing balance of payments problems can borrow money. As of 2016, the fund had XDR 477 billion. The IMF is regarded as the global lender of last resort.
John Harold Williamson was a British-born economist who coined the term Washington Consensus. He served as a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics from 1981 until his retirement in 2012. During that time, he was the project director for the United Nations High-Level Panel on Financing for Development in 2001. He was also on leave as chief economist for South Asia at the World Bank during 1996–99, adviser to the International Monetary Fund from 1972 to 1974, and an economic consultant to the UK Treasury from 1968 to 1970. He was also an economics professor at Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (1978–81), University of Warwick (1970–77), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of York (1963–68) and Princeton University (1962–63).
The Mexican peso crisis was a currency crisis sparked by the Mexican government's sudden devaluation of the peso against the U.S. dollar in December 1994, which became one of the first international financial crises ignited by capital flight.
Nouriel Roubini is a Turkish-born American economist. He is Professor Emeritus (2021-present) and was Professor of Economics (1995-2021) at the Stern School of Business, New York University, and also chairman of Roubini Macro Associates LLC, an economic consultancy firm.
The Argentine Great Depression was an economic depression in Argentina, which began in the third quarter of 1998 and lasted until the second quarter of 2002. It followed the fifteen years stagnation and a brief period of free-market reforms.
A bailout is the provision of financial help to a corporation or country which otherwise would be on the brink of bankruptcy.
The Argentine debt restructuring is a process of debt restructuring by Argentina that began on January 14, 2005, and allowed it to resume payment on 76% of the US$82 billion in sovereign bonds that defaulted in 2001 at the depth of the worst economic crisis in the nation's history. A second debt restructuring in 2010 brought the percentage of bonds under some form of repayment to 93%, though ongoing disputes with holdouts remained. Bondholders who participated in the restructuring settled for repayments of around 30% of face value and deferred payment terms, and began to be paid punctually; the value of their nearly worthless bonds also began to rise. The remaining 7% of bondholders were later repaid in full, after centre-right and US-aligned leader Mauricio Macri came to power in 2015.
Randal Keith Quarles is an American private equity investor and attorney who served as the first Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve for supervision from 2017 to 2021. He concurrently served as the chair of the Financial Stability Board from 2018 to 2021.
A sovereign default is the failure or refusal of the government of a sovereign state to pay back its debt in full when due. Cessation of due payments may either be accompanied by that government's formal declaration that it will not pay its debts (repudiation), or it may be unannounced. A credit rating agency will take into account in its gradings capital, interest, extraneous and procedural defaults, and failures to abide by the terms of bonds or other debt instruments.
Brad W. Setser is an American economist and former staff economist at the United States Department of the Treasury. He worked at Roubini Global Economics Monitor ("RGE"), as Director of Global Research, where he co-authored the book "Bailouts or Bail-ins?" with Nouriel Roubini.
The European debt crisis, often also referred to as the eurozone crisis or the European sovereign debt crisis, is a multi-year debt crisis that took place in the European Union (EU) from 2009 until the mid to late 2010s. Several eurozone member states were unable to repay or refinance their government debt or to bail out over-indebted banks under their national supervision without the assistance of third parties like other eurozone countries, the European Central Bank (ECB), or the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Debt crisis is a situation in which a government loses the ability of paying back its governmental debt. When the expenditures of a government are more than its tax revenues for a prolonged period, the government may enter into a debt crisis. Various forms of governments finance their expenditures primarily by raising money through taxation. When tax revenues are insufficient, the government can make up the difference by issuing debt.
Henry K. Rotich is a Kenyan civil servant who was nominated by President Uhuru Kenyatta as Cabinet Secretary for the National Treasury on 23 April 2013. On 14 January 2020, Rotich, who had been arrested on charges of corruption, was removed from this position.
Jubilee USA Network is a nonprofit financial reform organization based in Washington D.C. Jubilee USA's work began in conjunction with the global Jubilee 2000 movement, founded in the late 1990s to advocate for debt relief for developing countries. It is "an alliance of more than 75 U.S. organizations, 650 faith communities and 50 Jubilee global partners."
Reza Moghadam is a British-Iranian economist who has been Vice-Chairman for Global Capital Markets at Morgan Stanley since October 2014. Until July 2014, he was the International Monetary Fund’s front man for dealing with European policy makers and institutions during the eurozone crisis. During his twenty-year career at the IMF he dealt first-hand with many crises—in emerging markets, in the advanced countries of the Eurozone and with the Fund’s own restructuring.
The national debtof the People's Republic of China is the total amount of money owed by the central government, local governments, government branches and state organizations of China. As of 2020, China's total government debt stands at approximately ¥ RMB 46 trillion, equivalent to about 45% of GDP. Standard & Poor's Global Ratings has stated Chinese local governments may have an additional ¥ RMB 40 trillion in off-balance sheet debt. Furthermore, debt owed by state-owned industrial firms is another 74% of GDP according to the International Monetary Fund. The three government-owned banks owe a further 29% of GDP. The high debt level is a current economic issue facing China.
Nicolás Dujovne is an Argentine economist and former Minister of the Treasury between 2017 and 2019 under the administration of Mauricio Macri.
Geoffrey William Seiji Okamoto is an American economist and government official who served as first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund. Okamoto previously served as the acting assistant secretary for international finance and development in the United States Department of the Treasury. He was nominated for this position on January 1, 2019, by the White House and was never confirmed by the United States Congress. He previously served as acting assistant secretary for international markets and investment, for which he was also not confirmed.
Martín Maximiliano Guzmán is an Argentine economist, who served as Minister of Economy in the cabinet of President Alberto Fernández from December 2019 to July 2022.
