Editing International Monetary Fund (section)

==Voting power==
Voting power in the IMF is based on a quota system. Each member has a number of '''basic votes''', equal to 5.502% of the '''total votes''',<ref>{{cite web |title=Membership |url=http://www.imf.org/external/about/members.htm#function |work=About the IMF |publisher=International Monetary Fund |access-date=18 March 2012 |archive-date=5 September 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170905073131/http://www.imf.org/external/about/members.htm#function |url-status=live }}</ref> plus one additional vote for each [[special drawing rights|special drawing right]] (SDR) of 100,000 of a member country's quota.<ref name="Political Economy of IMF voting">{{Harvnb|Blomberg|Broz|2006}}.</ref> The SDR is the unit of account of the IMF and represents a potential claim to currency. It is based on a basket of key international currencies. The basic votes generate a slight bias in favour of small countries, but the additional votes determined by SDR outweigh this bias.<ref name="Political Economy of IMF voting" /> Changes in the voting shares require approval by a super-majority of 85% of voting power.<ref name="Lipscy 2015" />

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|+Quota and voting shares for the largest IMF members<ref name="IMF members"/>
!rowspan=2|Rank!!rowspan=2|IMF Member country!!colspan=2|Quota!!rowspan=2|Governor!! rowspan=2|Alternate!!rowspan=2| No. of votes!!rowspan=2|% of total<br />votes
|-
!millions of<br />[[Special drawing rights|XDR]]!!% of the<br />total
|-
|1||{{flagcountry|United States}}||82,994.2||17.42||Michael Kaplan||''[[United States Federal Reserve|Vacant]]''||831,394||16.49
|-
|2||{{flagcountry|Japan}}||30,820.5||6.47||[[Katsunobu Katō|Katsunobu Kato]]||[[Kazuo Ueda]]||309,657||6.14
|-
|3||{{flagcountry|China}}||30,482.9||6.40||[[Pan Gongsheng|Gongsheng Pan]]||{{Ill|Xuan Changneng|lt=Changneng Xuan|zh|宣昌能}}||306,281||6.08
|-
|4||{{flagcountry|Germany}}||26,634.4||5.59||[[Joachim Nagel]]||[[Jörg Kukies]]||267,796||5.31
|-
|5||{{flagcountry|France}}||20,155.1||4.23||[[Éric Lombard]]||[[François Villeroy de Galhau]]||203,003||4.03
|-
|6||{{nowrap|{{flagcountry|United Kingdom}}}}||20,155.1||4.23||[[Rachel Reeves]]||[[Andrew Bailey (banker)|Andrew Bailey]]||203,003||4.03
|-
|7||{{flagcountry|Italy}}||15,070.0||3.16||[[Giancarlo Giorgetti]]||[[Fabio Panetta]]||152,152||3.02
|-
|8||{{flagcountry|India}}||13,114.4||2.75||[[Nirmala Sitharaman]]||[[Sanjay Malhotra]]||132,596||2.63
|-
|9|||{{flagcountry|Russia}}||12,903.7||2.71||[[Anton Siluanov]]||[[Elvira Nabiullina|Elvira S. Nabiullina]]||130,489||2.59
|-
|10||{{flagcountry|Brazil}}||11,042.0||2.32||[[Fernando Haddad]]||[[Gabriel Galípolo]]||111,872||2.22
|-
|11||{{flagcountry|Canada}}||11,023.9||2.31||[[François-Philippe Champagne|Francois-Philippe Champagne]]||[[Tiff Macklem]]||111,691||2.22
|-
|12||{{flagcountry|Saudi Arabia}}||9,992.6||2.10||[[Mohammed Al-Jadaan]]||Ayman Alsayari||101,378||2.01
|-
|13||{{flagcountry|Spain}}||9,535.5||2.00||[[Carlos Cuerpo]]||[[José Luis Escrivá]]||96,807||1.92
|-
|14||{{flagcountry|Mexico}}||8,912.7||1.87||[[Edgar Amador Zamora]]||[[Victoria Rodríguez Ceja]]||90,579||1.80
|-
|15||{{flagcountry|Netherlands}}||8,736.5||1.83||[[Klaas Knot]]||Jasper Wesseling||88,817||1.76
|-
|16||{{flagcountry|South Korea}}||8,582.7||1.80||[[Choi Sang-mok|Sang Mok Choi]]||[[Rhee Chang-yong|Chang Yong Rhee]]||87,279||1.73
|-
|17||{{flagcountry|Australia}}||6,572.4||1.38||[[Jim Chalmers]]||[[Steven Kennedy]]||67,176||1.33
|-
|18||{{flagcountry|Belgium}}||6,410.7||1.35||{{Ill|Pierre Wunsch|fr}}||[[Vincent Van Peteghem]]||65,559||1.30
|-
|19||{{flagcountry|Switzerland}}||5,771.1||1.21||[[Martin Schlegel|Martin Reto Schlegel]]||[[Karin Keller-Sutter]]||59,163||1.17
|-
|20||{{flagcountry|Turkey}}||4,658.6||0.98||[[Mehmet Şimşek]]||[[Fatih Karahan]]||48,038||0.95
|-
|21||{{flagcountry|Indonesia}}||4,648.4||0.98||[[Perry Warjiyo]]||[[Sri Mulyani|Sri Mulyani Indrawati]]||47,936||0.95
|-
|22||{{flagcountry|Sweden}}||4,430.0||0.93||[[Erik Thedéen]]||Johanna Lybeck Lilja||45,752||0.91
|-
|23||{{flagcountry|Poland}}||4,095.4||0.86||[[Andrzej Domański]]||{{ill|Marta Kightley|pl}}||42,406||0.84
|-
|24||{{flagcountry|Austria}}||3,932.0||0.83||[[Robert Holzmann]]||Edeltraud Stiftinger||40,772||0.81
|-
|25||{{flagcountry|Singapore}}||3,891.9||0.82||[[Gan Kim Yong]]||Der Jiun Chia||40,371||0.80
|}

In December 2015, the [[United States Congress]] adopted a legislation authorising the 2010 Quota and Governance Reforms. As a result,
* all 190 members' quotas will increase from a total of about XDR 238.5 billion to about XDR 477 billion, while the quota shares and voting power of the IMF's poorest member countries will be protected.
* more than 6 percent of quota shares will shift to dynamic emerging market and developing countries and also from over-represented to under-represented members.
* four emerging market countries (Brazil, China, India, and Russia) will be among the ten largest members of the IMF. Other top 10 members are the United States, Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Italy.<ref>IMF [http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2015/pr15573.htm IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde Welcomes U.S. Congressional Approval of the 2010 Quota and Governance Reforms] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170608185639/http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2015/pr15573.htm |date=8 June 2017 }}, Press release No. 15/573, 18 December 2015.</ref>

===Effects of the quota system===
The IMF's quota system was created to raise funds for loans.<ref name="chorev"/> Each IMF member country is assigned a quota, or contribution, that reflects the country's relative size in the global economy. Each member's quota also determines its relative voting power. Thus, financial contributions from member governments are linked to voting power in the organization.<ref name="Political Economy of IMF voting" />

This system follows the logic of a shareholder-controlled organization: wealthy countries have more say in the making and revision of rules.<ref name="chorev"/> Since decision making at the IMF reflects each member's relative economic position in the world, wealthier countries that provide more money to the IMF have more influence than poorer members that contribute less; nonetheless, the IMF focuses on redistribution.<ref name="Political Economy of IMF voting" />

===Inflexibility of voting power===
Quotas are normally reviewed every five years and can be increased when deemed necessary by the board of governors. IMF voting shares are relatively inflexible: countries that grow economically have tended to become under-represented as their voting power lags behind.<ref name="Lipscy 2015" /> Currently, reforming the representation of [[developing countries]] within the IMF has been suggested.<ref name="Political Economy of IMF voting" /> These countries' economies represent a large portion of the global economic system but this is not reflected in the IMF's decision-making process through the nature of the quota system. [[Joseph Stiglitz]] argues, "There is a need to provide more effective voice and representation for developing countries, which now represent a much larger portion of world economic activity since 1944, when the IMF was created."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Stiglitz and Members of a UN Commission on Financial Experts |first1=Joseph E. |title=The Stiglitz Report: Reforming the International Monetary and Financial Systems in the Wake of the Global Crisis |year=2010 |publisher=The New Press |location=New York }}</ref> In 2008, a number of quota reforms were passed including shifting 6% of quota shares to dynamic emerging markets and developing countries.<ref>{{cite web |title=Factsheet: IMF Quotas |url=http://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/facts/quotas.htm |work=About the IMF |publisher=The International Monetary Fund |access-date=9 March 2011 |archive-date=30 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230430152628/http://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/facts/quotas.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Overcoming borrower/creditor divide===
The IMF's membership is divided along income lines: certain countries provide financial resources while others use these resources. Both [[developed country]] "creditors" and [[developing country]] "borrowers" are members of the IMF. The developed countries provide the financial resources but rarely enter into IMF loan agreements; they are the creditors. Conversely, the developing countries use the lending services but contribute little to the pool of money available to lend because their quotas are smaller; they are the borrowers. Thus, tension is created around governance issues because these two groups, creditors and borrowers, have fundamentally different interests.<ref name="Political Economy of IMF voting" />

The criticism is that the system of voting power distribution through a quota system institutionalizes borrower subordination and creditor dominance. The resulting division of the IMF's membership into borrowers and non-borrowers has increased the controversy around conditionality because the borrowers are interested in increasing loan access while creditors want to maintain reassurance that the loans will be repaid.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Kafka |first1=Alejandre |title=Some IMF Problems after the Committee of Twenty |work=International Financial Policy: Essays in honour of Jaques J. Polack |url=https://www.elibrary.imf.org/view/IMF071/03699-9781557751966/03699-9781557751966/ch05.xml |url-access=subscription |access-date=2 December 2018 |date=September 1991 |archive-date=3 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181203062835/https://www.elibrary.imf.org/view/IMF071/03699-9781557751966/03699-9781557751966/ch05.xml |url-status=live }}</ref>