The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution funded by 190 member countries, with headquarters in Washington, D.C. It is regarded as the global lender of last resort to national governments, and a leading supporter of exchange-rate stability. 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." Established on December 27, 1945 at the Bretton Woods Conference, primarily according to the ideas of Harry Dexter White and John Maynard Keynes, it started with 29 member countries and the goal of reconstructing the international monetary system after World War II. It now plays a central role in the management of balance of payments difficulties and international financial crises. Through a quota system, countries contribute funds to a pool from which countries can borrow if they experience balance of payments problems. As of 2016, the fund had SDR 477 billion.
Political economy is a branch of political science and economics studying economic systems and their governance by political systems. Widely studied phenomena within the discipline are systems such as labour markets and financial markets, as well as phenomena such as growth, distribution, inequality, and trade, and how these are shaped by institutions, laws, and government policy. Originating in the 16th century, it is the precursor to the modern discipline of economics. Political economy in its modern form is considered an interdisciplinary field, drawing on theory from both political science and modern economics.
Public choice, or public choice theory, is "the use of economic tools to deal with traditional problems of political science". Its content includes the study of political behavior. In political science, it is the subset of positive political theory that studies self-interested agents and their interactions, which can be represented in a number of ways – using standard constrained utility maximization, game theory, or decision theory. It is the origin and intellectual foundation of contemporary work in political economy.
Joseph Eugene Stiglitz is an American New Keynesian economist, a public policy analyst, and a full professor at Columbia University. He is a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001) and the John Bates Clark Medal (1979). He is a former senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank. He is also a former member and chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. He is known for his support for the Georgist public finance theory and for his critical view of the management of globalization, of laissez-faire economists, and of international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
The Washington Consensus is a set of ten economic policy prescriptions considered to constitute the "standard" reform package promoted for crisis-wracked developing countries by Washington, D.C.-based institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and United States Department of the Treasury. The term was first used in 1989 by English economist John Williamson. The prescriptions encompassed free-market promoting policies such as trade liberalization, privatization and finance liberalization. They also entailed fiscal and monetary policies intended to minimize fiscal deficits and minimize inflation.
Rent-seeking is the act of growing one's existing wealth by manipulating the social or political environment without creating new wealth. Rent-seeking activities have negative effects on the rest of society. They result in reduced economic efficiency through misallocation of resources, reduced wealth creation, lost government revenue, heightened income inequality, risk of growing political bribery, and potential national decline.
The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) is a graduate school of Johns Hopkins University based in Washington, D.C. with campuses in Bologna, Italy and Nanjing, China.
Structural adjustment programs (SAPs) consist of loans provided by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) to countries that experience economic crises. Their stated purpose is to adjust the country's economic structure, improve international competitiveness, and restore its balance of payments.
Government failure, in the context of public economics, is an economic inefficiency caused by a government intervention, if the inefficiency would not exist in a true free market. The costs of the government intervention are greater than the benefits provided. It can be viewed in contrast to a market failure, which is an economic inefficiency that results from the free market itself, and can potentially be corrected through government regulation. However, Government failure often arises from an attempt to solve market failure. The idea of government failure is associated with the policy argument that, even if particular markets may not meet the standard conditions of perfect competition required to ensure social optimality, government intervention may make matters worse rather than better.
International economics is concerned with the effects upon economic activity from international differences in productive resources and consumer preferences and the international institutions that affect them. It seeks to explain the patterns and consequences of transactions and interactions between the inhabitants of different countries, including trade, investment and transaction.
Helen Dolly Hughes was an Australian economist. She was Professor Emerita at the Australian National University, Canberra, and Senior Fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies, Sydney. Hughes has been described as Australia's greatest female economist.
Sho-Chieh Tsiang was a Chinese-American economist. He was born in China but resided primarily in the United States from 1949 until his death. He also resided in Taiwan in 1948 and in the 1980s.
Sharyn O’Halloran is the Strategic Academic Leadership Initiative Professor of Political Economy at Trinity College Dublin and Trinity Professorial Fellow. In 2006 she was named the George Blumenthal Professor of Political Economics and International and Public Affairs at Columbia University in New York City., where she served as the Senior Vice Dean and Chief Academic Officer at the School of Professional Studies at Columbia University in New York City.[1] A political scientist and economist by training, O’Halloran has written extensively on issues related to the political economy of international trade and finance, regulation and institutional reform, economic growth and democratic transitions, and the political representation of minorities.
Malcolm D. Knight is a Canadian economist, policymaker and banker. He is currently Visiting Professor of Finance at the London School of Economics and Political Science and a Distinguished Fellow at the Center for International Governance Innovation. From 2008 to 2012, Knight was Vice Chairman of Deutsche Bank Group where he was responsible for developing and coordinating the bank's global approach to issues in financial regulation, supervision, and financial stability. He served as general manager of the Bank for International Settlements from 2003 to 2008 and as Senior Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada (1999-2003), after holding senior positions at the International Monetary Fund (1975-1999).
Carlos A. Végh is a Uruguayan academic economist who, since 2013, is the Fred H. Sanderson Professor of International Economics at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and holds a joint appointment with Johns Hopkins' Department of Economics. He is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research since 1998. He was the World Bank's chief economist for Latin America and the Caribbean from February 1, 2017 to June 30, 2019, while on leave from Johns Hopkins. He was previously a professor of economics and vice-chair of undergraduate studies at UCLA (1996-2005) and professor of economics at the University of Maryland (2005-2013). His research work on monetary and fiscal policy in emerging and developing countries has been highly influential in both academic and policy circles. In particular, his work on fiscal procyclicality in emerging markets has been instrumental in generating a copious literature on the subject, which has influenced the adoption of fiscal rules in many emerging markets.
John Phillip Lipsky is an American economist. He was the acting managing director of the International Monetary Fund from May to July 2011. He assumed the post of acting managing director after Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested in May 2011 accused of sexual assault. After the appointment of Christine Lagarde he returned to his post as the first deputy managing director of the IMF. He retired from the IMF in November 2011 and is currently a distinguished visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).
Stephany Griffith-Jones is an economist specializing in international finance and development. Her expertise lies in the reform of the international financial system, particularly in financial regulation, global governance, and international capital flows. Currently, she serves as a member of the Governor Board at the Central Bank of Chile. She has held various positions throughout her career, including financial markets director at the Initiative for Policy Dialogue based at Columbia University, associate fellow at the Overseas Development Institute, and professorial fellow at the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex University.
Adriana Debora Kugler is an American economist who serves as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. She previously served as U.S. executive director at the World Bank, nominated by President Joe Biden and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in April 2022. She is a professor of public policy at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy and is currently on leave from her tenured position at Georgetown. She served as the Chief Economist to U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis from September 6, 2011 to January 4, 2013.
Michael G. Porter is an Australian academic economist who taught at the Australian National University (Canberra) and Monash University (Melbourne). In 1979, he set up a think-tank at Monash University, the Centre of Policy Studies (CoPS) supporting freer markets in commodities, finance and foreign exchange along with researching and advocating significant market-improving regulatory reforms. As part of this process CoPS employed leading US and other international economists and industry specialists. He is also the founding director of Tasman Institute from 1990-98
Enrica Detragiache is the head of the Germany Desk of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the assistant director of the IMF's European division. She formerly taught Economics at Johns Hopkins University, and has published over 71 research papers and articles. Her research covers topics such as labour migration, financial crises, development economics, and corporate finance.
