Reply #51: south asia: Recruiting the right Managing Director for the IMF

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http://www.firstpost.com/blogs/recruiting-the-right-md-for-the-imf-16784.html

The recruitment of the IMF MD has turned into quite a controversy. For an interesting set of views, see this page on the website of The Economist. In a remarkable development, the EDs of India, China, Russia, Brazil and South Africa came out with a clear joint statement on the silliness that is afoot.
There are four perspectives on this question which are worth noting:

1. There is an obvious gap between the power structure at the IMF, which reflects the structure of the world economy after the Second World War, as compared with the present reality. As an example, at present, the Netherlands has 2.08% of the votes while India has 2.35%. But Indian GDP is now $1.6 trillion while Netherlands is at half that.
2. The world would benefit from a competent and capable IMF. The best man (or woman) for the job will not be obtained by having any restrictions on nationality. As an example, in today’s world, a name that leaps out to me is Stan Fischer. But he’s not European, and hence was never even considered for the top job in the last decade. (As with Montek, he is now over age 65 and is hence not eligible for the job today). Given that a large fraction of the top economists of the world are not European, this rule yields a less capable IMF.