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.
Macroeconomics is a branch of economics that deals with the performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of an economy as a whole. This includes regional, national, and global economies. Macroeconomists study topics such as output/GDP and national income, unemployment, price indices and inflation, consumption, saving, investment, energy, international trade, and international finance.
New Keynesian economics is a school of macroeconomics that strives to provide microeconomic foundations for Keynesian economics. It developed partly as a response to criticisms of Keynesian macroeconomics by adherents of new classical macroeconomics.
Monetary policy is the policy adopted by the monetary authority of a nation to affect monetary and other financial conditions to accomplish broader objectives like high employment and price stability. Further purposes of a monetary policy may be to contribute to economic stability or to maintain predictable exchange rates with other currencies. Today most central banks in developed countries conduct their monetary policy within an inflation targeting framework, whereas the monetary policies of most developing countries' central banks target some kind of a fixed exchange rate system. A third monetary policy strategy, targeting the money supply, was widely followed during the 1980s, but has diminished in popularity since that, though it is still the official strategy in a number of emerging economies.
In economic policy, austerity is a set of political-economic policies that aim to reduce government budget deficits through spending cuts, tax increases, or a combination of both. There are three primary types of austerity measures: higher taxes to fund spending, raising taxes while cutting spending, and lower taxes and lower government spending. Austerity measures are often used by governments that find it difficult to borrow or meet their existing obligations to pay back loans. The measures are meant to reduce the budget deficit by bringing government revenues closer to expenditures. Proponents of these measures state that this reduces the amount of borrowing required and may also demonstrate a government's fiscal discipline to creditors and credit rating agencies and make borrowing easier and cheaper as a result.
Money creation, or money issuance, is the process by which the money supply of a country, or of an economic or monetary region, is increased. In most modern economies, money is created by both central banks and commercial banks. Money issued by central banks is termed reserve deposits and is only available for use by central bank accounts holders, which is generally large commercial banks and foreign central banks. Central banks can increase the quantity of reserve deposits directly, by engaging in open market operations or quantitative easing. However, the majority of the money supply used by the public for conducting transactions is created by the commercial banking system in the form of bank deposits. Bank loans issued by commercial banks expands the quantity of bank deposits.
John Brian Taylor is the Mary and Robert Raymond Professor of Economics at Stanford University, and the George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Economics at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
In macroeconomics, inflation targeting is a monetary policy where a central bank follows an explicit target for the inflation rate for the medium-term and announces this inflation target to the public. The assumption is that the best that monetary policy can do to support long-term growth of the economy is to maintain price stability, and price stability is achieved by controlling inflation. The central bank uses interest rates as its main short-term monetary instrument.
Olivier Jean Blanchard is a French economist and professor who currently serves as the Robert M. Solow Professor Emeritus of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and as the C. Fred Bergsten Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He was the chief economist at the International Monetary Fund from September 1, 2008, to September 8, 2015. Blanchard was appointed to the position under the tenure of Dominique Strauss-Kahn; he was succeeded by Maurice Obstfeld. According to IDEAS/RePEc, he is one of the most cited economists in the world.
Raghuram Govind Rajan is an Indian economist and the Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business. Between 2003 and 2006 he was Chief Economist and director of research at the International Monetary Fund. From September 2013 through September 2016 he was the 23rd Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. In 2015, during his tenure at the RBI, he became the Vice-Chairman of the Bank for International Settlements.
Modern monetary theory or modern money theory (MMT) is a heterodox macroeconomic theory that describes currency as a public monopoly and unemployment as evidence that a currency monopolist is overly restricting the supply of the financial assets needed to pay taxes and satisfy savings desires. According to MMT, governments do not need to worry about accumulating debt since they can create new money by using fiscal policy in order to pay interest. MMT argues that the primary risk once the economy reaches full employment is inflation, which acts as the only constraint on spending. MMT also argues that inflation can be addressed by increasing taxes on everyone to reduce the spending capacity of the private sector.
Alberto Francesco Alesina was an Italian economist who served as the Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University from 2003 until his death in 2020. He was known principally as an economist of politics and culture, and was famed for his usage of economic tools to study social and political issues. He was described as having “almost single-handedly” established the modern field of political economy, and as a likely contender for the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.
Guillermo Antonio Calvo is an Argentine-American economist who is director of Columbia University's mid-career Program in Economic Policy Management in their School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA).
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).
Following the global financial crisis of 2007–2008, there was a worldwide resurgence of interest in Keynesian economics among prominent economists and policy makers. This included discussions and implementation of economic policies in accordance with the recommendations made by John Maynard Keynes in response to the Great Depression of the 1930s, most especially fiscal stimulus and expansionary monetary policy.
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.
Emmanuel Farhi was a French economist who served as the Robert C. Waggoner Professor of Economics at Harvard University from 2018 till his death in 2020. A specialist in macroeconomics, taxation and finance, he also served on the Conseil d’Analyse Économique from 2010 to 2010. On July 23, 2020, aged 41, Farhi committed suicide.
Amir Yaron is an Israeli-American economist and the current Governor of the Bank of Israel. Prior to serving as Governor, Yaron served as Professor of Banking and Finance at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Linda L. Tesar is a professor of economics and director of graduate studies at the University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA), the liberal arts and sciences school of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Editor-in-Chief of the IMF Economic Review. She has been a visitor in the Research Departments of the International Monetary Fund, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. In the past, she has also served on the academic advisory council to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. From 2014 to 2015, Tesar served as Senior Economist on the Council of Economic Advisers.
Luisa Lambertini is an Italian economist specialized in monetary and fiscal policies. She is a professor of economics at EPFL, where she holds the Chair of International Finance at the College of Management of Technology.
