First Productivity and Management Paper



First Productivity and Management Paper

Christine Lagarde

The paper analyzes the leadership and administrative role of Christine Lagarde, Executive Director of the International Monetary Fund. It officially became Executive Director of the IMF on 5 July 2011, for a term of five years. She is the first woman, except during interim direction, this position. Christine Lagarde takes office in a particularly difficult context for the euro area, whose financial stability is threatened by the level of public debt. This is particularly the case of Greece, which, despite a bailout of 110 billion Euros set up in May 2010 and the passing of a major austerity plan, regularly sees its financial rating lowered the rating agencies , which may have serious consequences on the European economy.

History and Overview of IMF

The onset of the Great Depression of 1929-33 and World War II brought a large number of countries a list of sufferings hitherto unprecedented in its size whether it be measured in human terms and in terms of geography. The economic crisis, in particular, had triggered a set of measures and behaviors on the part of the authorities' economic countries at that time already more industrialized that have contributed to the increasing deterioration of that crisis rather than remedies for it. At the head of this behavior is known to quote the beggar-thy-neighbor (impoverishing the neighbor). This consisted of an exchange rate policy that had solely at ensuring, as far as possible, the continued export of part of domestic production as a way to cushion the fall of the economic climate of the country.

That policy was based, therefore, on the need to ensure the external competitiveness of the economy and led to a practice of aggressive devaluation This practice has helped, as has been said, the deepening of the crisis and the emergence of tensions between the countries that contributed to the establishment of the climate that led to the Second World War.

The result of that meeting in Bretton Woods was the creation of not one but two supranational organizations. One was named after the International Monetary Fund and had a main function that you mentioned above. The other, named as the name of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD, better known to all as the “Bank “) was assigned the fundamental mission of helping to finance the process of economic reconstruction of countries affected by World War II mainly European countries. Were born the “sisters in the Woods “, happy expression on one of the famous surveys published by The Economist.

On March 1, 1947 the Fund, which currently has 182 member countries, began operations, with the first loan was granted to France. This allows the time to remember that the vast majority of countries that now constitute the colony were still a European power. Thus, the Fund was born mainly by agreement between the European countries and America, mostly the more industrialized then.

In turn, the United States ensured that would trade any amount of dollars for ...