IMF Voting Reform: Need, Opportunity and Options

David Woodward

No 49, G-24 Discussion Papers from United Nations Conference on Trade and Development

Abstract: The IMF’s economically-weighted voting system gives rise to a major asymmetry of political power, both directly and indirectly, and to serious systemic inertia. The increasing financial pressure on the Fund, a credible “walk-away” threat by “emerging market” economies, and the potential for effective domestic pressure in developed countries together provide an important opportunity for change. The paper proposes a long-term strategy for developing countries, aimed at combining the political strengths of low- and middle-income countries (in providing a moral case for reform and a credible “walk-away” threat respectively). It proposes as an opening position and long-term objective splitting the three functions of IMF quotas, on the grounds of the fundamental changes in the Fund’s membership, nature and role, and in political culture, since it was established in 1944; and the weighting of votes exclusively on population, recommending the square root of population as the preferred basis.

Date: 2007
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/gdsmdpbg2420077_en.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:unc:g24pap:49

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in G-24 Discussion Papers from United Nations Conference on Trade and Development Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joerg Mayer ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).