The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an international organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 189 countries 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 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 payment 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 SDR477 billion.
The United Nations Economic and Social Council is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations, responsible for coordinating the economic and social fields of the organisation, specifically in regards to the 15 specialised agencies, the eight functional commissions and the five regional commissions under its jurisdiction.
The Bretton Woods Conference, formally known as the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, was the gathering of 730 delegates from all 44 Allied nations at the Mount Washington Hotel, situated in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States, to regulate the international monetary and financial order after the conclusion of World War II.
The green gross domestic product is an index of economic growth with the environmental consequences of that growth factored into a country's conventional GDP. Green GDP monetizes the loss of biodiversity, and accounts for costs caused by climate change. Some environmental experts prefer physical indicators, which may be aggregated to indices such as the "Sustainable Development Index".
Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul is a German politician and a member of the Social Democratic Party since 1965.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram, known as Jomo, is a prominent Malaysian economist. He holds the Tun Hussein Onn Chair in International Studies at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies, Malaysia, and is Visiting Senior Fellow at Khazanah Research Institute, Visiting Fellow at the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, Columbia University, and Adjunct Professor at the International Islamic University, Malaysia.
The G20 is an international forum for the governments and central bank governors from 19 countries and the European Union (EU). Founded in 1999 with the aim to discuss policy pertaining to the promotion of international financial stability, the G20 has expanded its agenda since 2008 and heads of government or heads of state, as well as finance ministers and foreign ministers, have periodically conferred at summits ever since. It seeks to address issues that go beyond the responsibilities of any one organization.
Enrico Giovannini is an Italian economist and statistician, member of the Club of Rome. Since 2002, he has been a full professor of economic statistics at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. He is Senior Fellow of the LUISS "School of European Political Economy", member of the “Commission Economique de la Nation” of the French Government, and co-chair of the "Independent Expert Advisory Group on the Data Revolution for Sustainable Development" established by the Secretary-General of the United Nations. He is also chair and member of several boards of Italian and international organisations. From April 2013 to February 2014 he was Minister of labour and social policies in the Italian government. From August 2009 to April 2013 he was President of the Italian Statistical Institute (Istat). From January 2001 to July 2009, he was Director of Statistics and Chief Statistician of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
The 2008 G20 Washington Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy took place on November 14–15, 2008, in Washington, D.C., United States. It achieved general agreement amongst the G20 on how to cooperate in key areas so as to strengthen economic growth, deal with the 2008 financial crisis, and lay the foundation for reform to avoid similar crises in the future. The Summit resulted from an initiative by the French and European Union President, Nicolas Sarkozy, and the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. In connection with the G7 finance ministers on October 11, 2008, United States President George W. Bush stated that the next meeting of the G20 would be important in finding solutions to the economic crisis. Since many economists and politicians called for a new Bretton Woods system to overhaul the world's financial structure, the meeting has sometimes been described by the media as Bretton Woods II.
The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) is part of the United Nations University (UNU). UNU-WIDER, the first research and training centre to be established by the UNU, is an international academic organization set up with the aim of promoting peace and progress by bringing together leading scholars from around the world to tackle pressing global problems.
The Financial Stability Board (FSB) is an international body that monitors and makes recommendations about the global financial system. It was established after the G20 London summit in April 2009 as a successor to the Financial Stability Forum (FSF). The Board includes all G20 major economies, FSF members, and the European Commission. Hosted and funded by the Bank for International Settlements, the board is based in Basel, Switzerland.
Stiglitz Commission is a short name given for two commissions led by the US economist Joseph E. Stiglitz:
Jean-Paul Fitoussi is a French economist of Sephardi Jewish descent. Born in La Goulette, Tunisia, Fitoussi earned his Ph.D. cum laude in Law and Economics from the University of Strasbourg. From 1979 until 1983, he was a professor at the European University Institute in Florence, and a visiting professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1984. He currently is a Professor of Economics at the Institut d'études politiques de Paris, where he has taught since 1982. He is also Professor Emeritus at LUISS "Guido Carli" University, in Rome. From 1989 to 2010 he served as President of the Observatoire Français des Conjonctures Econoniques, an institute dedicated to economic research and forecasting. He has published numerous articles, books and essays. He is considered to be one of the intellectual leaders of neo-keynesianism of these past 40 years, but claims to have a "very heterodox" vision.
Fan Gang is one of China's most prominent economists and one of China's most active reform advocates. He is currently based in Beijing, serving as a professor at the Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) and at the Peking University HSBC Business School, as well as the director of China's National Economic Research Institute (NERI). He is also the Secretary-General of the China Reform Foundation.
José Antonio Ocampo Gaviria is, since July 2007, Professor of Professional Practice in International and Public Affairs and Director of the Economic and Political Development Concentration at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University. Prior to his appointment, Ocampo served in a number of positions in the United Nations and the Government of Colombia, most notably in the United Nations as Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs and Executive Secretary for the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, and in Colombia as Minister of Finance and Public Credit and Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Yaga Venugopal Reddy, better known as Y. V. Reddy, is an Indian economist and a retired Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the 1964 batch belonging to Andhra Pradesh cadre. Reddy served as governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) from 6 September 2003 until 5 September 2008.
The Stiglitz Report: Reforming the International Monetary and Financial Systems in the Wake of the Global Crisis is a book on economics written by Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz, documenting the necessary changes and reforms of the international financial institutions in the wake of the Financial Crisis of 2008, and the subsequent Great Recession arisen from it.
Stephany Griffith-Jones is an economist specialising in international finance and development, with emphasis on reform of the international financial system, specifically in relation to financial regulation, global governance and international capital flows. She is currently financial markets director at the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, based at Columbia University in New York and associate fellow at the Overseas Development Institute. Previously she was professorial fellow at the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex University. She has held the position of deputy director of International Finance at the Commonwealth Secretariat and has worked at the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs and in the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. She started her career in 1970 at the Central Bank of Chile. Before joining the Institute of Development Studies, she worked at Barclays Bank International in the UK. She has acted as senior consultant to governments in Eastern Europe and Latin America and to many international agencies, including the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the European Commission, UNICEF, UNDP and United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. She was also a member of the Warwick Commission on international financial reform. She has published over 20 books and written many scholarly and journalistic articles. Her latest book, edited jointly with José Antonio Ocampo and Joseph Stiglitz, Time for the Visible Hand, Lessons from the 2008 crisis, was published in 2010.
