40 Fun Facts About International Monetary Fund

Which city became the IMF's home after a US Treasury secretary overruled plans to base it in New York?

Washington won because Fred Vinson feared a New York address would leave the IMF tarred in American eyes with the taint of international finance.

Which economist led the British delegation at the Bretton Woods conference, where the IMF was designed?

John Maynard Keynes pictured the IMF as a cooperative pool that members could draw on in a slump, but most of the rival American plan was adopted instead.

Which sister institution of the IMF was created alongside it at Bretton Woods to finance postwar reconstruction?

The World Bank began as the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and a country must join the IMF before it can become a member.

Which lawyer and former synchronised swimmer became the first woman to lead the IMF in 2011?

Christine Lagarde swam on her national synchronised team as a teenager, and left the IMF in 2019 to become the first woman to run the eurozone's central bank.

In which country did millions of citizens hand in their gold in early 1998 to help repay an IMF bailout?

South Korea's gold drive drew about 3.5 million people and gathered some 227 tons, worth over $2 billion, within a few months.

Which eurozone member became the first developed country to miss an IMF loan repayment, in June 2015?

Greece made the payment 20 days late, in a summer when its banks shut for weeks and its voters rejected further austerity in a referendum.

Which South American country received the largest loan in IMF history, a $57 billion package agreed in 2018?

Argentina sought the money under President Mauricio Macri, and the government that followed him refused to draw the last $11 billion.

Which US president ended the dollar's convertibility into gold in 1971, toppling the IMF's fixed exchange rates?

Richard Nixon made the announcement after a secret weekend with advisers at Camp David, and the jolt it caused has borne his name ever since.

By convention an American leads the IMF's sister body, while the IMF's own chief comes from which continent?

Europe has supplied every IMF managing director since 1946, a custom the BRICS countries attacked in 2011 as undermining the institution's legitimacy.

In which US state is Bretton Woods, the mountain resort where delegates agreed to create the IMF in 1944?

New Hampshire hosted 730 delegates from 44 Allied countries at one grand hotel, and the talks overran their planned closing date by three days.

Which country became the IMF's first borrower in May 1947, two months after it opened for lending?

France drew the first loan on 8 May 1947, barely two months after the IMF opened for lending with about forty member countries.

Which Latin American country left the IMF in 1964, becoming one of the few states in the world outside it?

Cuba's exit put it in rare company: of the world's fully recognised states, only two others sit outside the IMF, Monaco among them.

Which Allied power signed the Bretton Woods agreements but then refused to ratify them, staying out of the IMF?

The Soviet Union dismissed the new bodies as branches of Wall Street and objected to the dollar being given a place beside gold.

Which wealthy country stayed outside the IMF until 1992, when its voters approved membership in a referendum?

Switzerland's voters backed IMF membership in May 1992, yet seven months later they rejected a single-market pact with the EU.

Which IMF managing director resigned in May 2011 after being arrested in New York, on charges later dropped?

Dominique Strauss-Kahn had been the favourite for his Socialist Party's 2012 presidential nomination, and the cases against him ended his political career.

The IMF is a specialized agency of which organization, whose name its 1944 founding conference also carried?

The United Nations name was on the Bretton Woods talks too: they were formally the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, held by 44 Allied countries.

Which country floated its currency in July 1997, setting off the Asian financial crisis that drew in the IMF?

Thailand let the baht float on 2 July 1997 and it lost more than half its value, a collapse Thais call the Tom Yum Kung crisis.

Which currency joined the US dollar, euro, yen and pound in the basket behind the IMF's reserve asset in 2016?

The Chinese renminbi entered with a weight of about 11 percent, having been turned down in 2010 for not yet being freely usable.

Which country devalued its currency and defaulted in August 1998, a month after an IMF rescue was approved?

Russia's default came five weeks after a $22.6 billion international package was approved, and the ruble went on to lose two-thirds of its value in about a month.

Which Asian economy was ejected from the IMF in 1980, with its seat passing to a far larger neighbour?

Taiwan lost the seat after US president Jimmy Carter withdrew his support, and the People's Republic of China took over the membership.

Which reserve asset did the IMF create in 1969, valuing each unit at first as equal to one US dollar?

Special Drawing Rights were first pegged to gold, then redefined as a basket of major currencies after fixed exchange rates broke down in 1973.

Which nickname did the IMF and two EU bodies earn while jointly overseeing eurozone bailouts in the 2010s?

Troika comes from a word for a carriage drawn by three horses, and here it meant the IMF, the EU's executive commission and the eurozone's central bank.

Which country said in August 1982 that it could not service its debt, drawing the IMF into a regional crisis?

Mexico had borrowed heavily against future oil revenues, so when oil prices fell its finance minister announced a 90-day halt to payments.

Which country bought 200 tonnes of gold from the IMF in 2009, in a deal worth about $6.7 billion?

India had been on the other side in 1991, airlifting 67 tons of its own gold abroad as collateral during a balance-of-payments emergency.

Kristalina Georgieva, the first IMF chief from an emerging market economy, comes from which Balkan country?

Bulgaria got its first microeconomics textbook in its own language from Georgieva in 1990, written to explain in simple terms how a market economy works.

Which microstate became the IMF's 191st member when it joined in October 2024?

Liechtenstein signed up during the IMF's annual meetings, leaving only three widely recognised states outside the organisation.

Which name did Britain give the supranational currency it proposed in the 1940s, rivalling the American IMF plan?

Bancor could be bought with gold but never swapped back for it, and no individual would have been allowed to hold or trade it.

Which Indonesian president agreed to an IMF reform package in January 1998, then resigned in May amid riots?

Suharto had ruled for more than three decades, and it was the collapse of the rupiah and the sharp price rises that followed which finally forced him out.

Which IMF managing director resigned in 2004 to stand for, and win, the presidency of Germany?

Horst Köhler stayed head of state until 2010, when he quit abruptly in a row over a remark about the role of his country's armed forces.

Which Nobel laureate attacked IMF policies in his 2002 book Globalization and Its Discontents?

Joseph Stiglitz drew on his years as chief economist of the IMF's sister institution, arguing that IMF advice had helped bring about the Asian crisis of 1997.

Camille Gutt, the IMF's first managing director, had earlier moved which country's gold out of Nazi reach?

Belgium's finance minister through the war, Gutt ran the country's money from exile in London before taking charge of the IMF in 1946.

Which Harvard professor became the IMF's first female chief economist when she was appointed in 2018?

Gita Gopinath moved up in 2022 to become the IMF's second-in-command, then went back to a Harvard chair in 2025.

Which British prime minister's government borrowed $3.9 billion from the IMF during the 1976 sterling crisis?

James Callaghan had been in office only months, having replaced Harold Wilson that April, and the request was the largest the IMF had ever received.

Which North African country hosted the IMF's annual meetings in October 2023, a month after a deadly earthquake?

Morocco staged the gathering in Marrakesh, in the one year in three when the autumn meetings leave the IMF's home city for another member country.

Which Eastern Bloc country withdrew from the IMF in 1950 and did not return until 1986?

Poland's exit was followed in 1954 by the expulsion of Czechoslovakia for failing to provide required data, a ban that lasted until 1990.

Which US Treasury official, author of the plan behind most of the IMF's design, was accused of spying in 1948?

Harry Dexter White firmly denied the accusation, but decoded cables and archives opened in the 1990s later supported it.

During which 1956 confrontation did the US deny Britain emergency IMF help as its reserves drained away?

The Suez Crisis cost the Bank of England $45 million in four days, and with the canal closed Britain's oil supply was squeezed as well.

Which Caribbean island gave its name to the 1976 accords that formally ended the IMF's Bretton Woods system?

Jamaica hosted the deciding committee meeting in Kingston that January, where the IMF's governors accepted the floating exchange rates that had been reality since 1973.

Which IMF managing director served a record thirteen years, from 1987 to 2000?

Michel Camdessus had run his country's central bank before the IMF, and no other managing director has stayed in the post as long.

Which IMF chief economist used a 2005 tribute to Alan Greenspan to warn of dangers in the financial sector?

Raghuram Rajan was branded a luddite for it by former Treasury secretary Lawrence Summers, yet he is now credited with predicting the 2008 financial crisis.