Lessons from the IMF’s Bailout of Greece

Lessons from the IMF’s Bailout of Greece

Statement of
Rebecca M. Nelson
Specialist in International Trade and Finance
Before
Committee on Financial Services
Subcommittee on Monetary Policy and Trade
U.S. House of Representatives
Hearing on
“Lessons from the IMF’s Bailout of Greece”
May 18, 2017
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Chairman Barr, Ranking Member Moore, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today on behalf of the Congressional Research Service to discuss
“Lessons from the IMF’s Bailout of Greece.” As requested, my testimony focuses on the implications of
the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programs in Greece, particularly their impact on the IMF’s
capacity to deploy its resources responsibly and effectively.
IMF Involvement in the Greek Crisis
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an international organization whose primary purpose is to
ensure stability of the international monetary system.1 The United States is the IMF’s largest shareholder
and plays a key role in shaping IMF policies and programs. IMF membership has grown from 30
countries in 1945 to 189 countries today.2
The IMF’s role in the global economy has evolved over the past 70 years. The IMF was originally created
to oversee a system of pegged exchange rates and provide financing to countries facing temporary
balance-of-payments crises associated with currency misalignments. In the 1970s, the system of pegged
exchange rates broke down, and the United States and several other major economies adopted floating
exchange rates. New challenges in the global economy emerged, and the IMF began extending emergency
loans to countries facing a broader range of banking, debt, and currency crises. The IMF played a key role
in responding to major international financial crises, including the 1980s debt crisis, the Mexican crisis in
1994-1995, the Asian financial crisis in 1997-1998, the Argentine crisis in 2000-2001, and the global
financial crisis of 2008-2010. The IMF’s track record in crises has been scrutinized, and at times has been
characterized by some critics as bailing out profligate governments and imposing austerity policies that
have harsh social consequences.3
In recent years, the most challenging economic crisis facing the IMF has been Greece.4 The Greek crisis
is rooted in concerns about its public debt and finances, although the crisis exposed broader issues with
Greece’s banking sector, structural policies, and membership in the Eurozone.5 The IMF approved two
financial assistance programs for Greece, co-financed with European creditors, in 2010 and 2012. For the
IMF as an institution, the stakes were high: the programs were among the largest in IMF history, Greece
was the first advanced economy to borrow from the IMF in several decades, and failing to contain the
crisis could have undermined recovery from the global financial crisis.
Seven years into the crisis, the IMF’s record in Greece is mixed. The IMF programs—in conjunction with
measures taken by the Eurozone countries and the European Central Bank (ECB)—succeeded in ring-
fencing the crisis and preventing spillover from Greece to larger economies in the Eurozone and the
broader global economy. However, Greece’s economy has not yet recovered. Greece’s debt is higher than
before the crisis, its economy has contracted by 25%, and one in five Greeks is unemployed.6 In the
summer of 2015, the Greek government did not make its scheduled repayments to the IMF. It is unusual

1 For more on the IMF, see CRS Report R42019, International Monetary Fund: Background and Issues for Congress, by Martin
A. Weiss.
2 International Monetary Fund (IMF), List of Members, March 7, 2017.
3 For example, see Allen H. Meltzer, "The Report of the International Financial Institution Advisory Commission: Comments on
the Critics," in The IMF and its Critics: Reform of the Global Financial Architecture, ed. David Vines and Christopher L. Gilbert
(Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 106-124; Alexander E. Kentikelenis, Thomas H. Stubbs, and Lawrence P. King, "IMF
Conditionality and Development Space, 1985-2014," Review of International Political Economy, vol. 23, no. 4 (2016), pp. 543-
582.
4 For more on the Greek crisis, see CRS Report R44155, The Greek Debt Crisis: Overview and Implications for the United
States, coordinated by Rebecca M. Nelson.
5 The Eurozone is a group of 19 of the 28 European Union (EU) member states which have adopted a common currency, the
euro.
6 IMF, World Economic Outlook Database, April 2017.
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for any country to miss a payment to the IMF, and Greece became the first advanced economy in the
institution’s history to do so. Although Greece later made these payments, it raised questions about the
Fund’s exposure to Greece, one of its largest borrowers at the time (Figure 1). Greece remains cut off
from international capital markets and relies on a third rescue program financed by European creditors,
without IMF participation.
Figure 1. Use of IMF Credit and Loans

Source: IMF, International Financial Statistics.
Throughout the Greek crisis, analysts have pointed to missteps taken by a number of actors, including the
Greek government, private banks that lent money to Greece, Eurozone leaders and institutions, and the
IMF. Given the broader role of the IMF in in the global economy, however, the IMF’s handling of the
crisis in Greece has been widely examined, including by independent analysts and the IMF’s Independent
Evaluation Office (IEO).7
The IMF has defended its policy response in Greece and has taken steps to address some of the issues
raised by the Greek crisis.8 The IMF changed its policy advice on debt restructuring and austerity during
the crisis, declined to participate in a third program for Greece due to concerns about debt sustainability
and economic reforms, and revised its lending policies largely based on its experience in Greece. The
IMF also financed programs in three other Eurozone countries—Ireland (2010), Portugal (2011), and
Cyprus (2013)—which are broadly viewed as successful.
However, the IMF programs in Greece raise a number of broader policy challenges for the IMF that
remain outstanding and are likely to be relevant in future crises. These include questions, discussed in

7 For example, Desmond Lachman, “Greek Lessons for the IMF,” The Hill, February 20, 2015; Ashoka Mody, “The IMF’s Big
Greek Mistake,” Bloomberg View, April 21, 2015; Carmen M. Reinhart and Christoph Trebesch, “The International Monetary
Fund: 70 Years of Reinvention,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 30, no. 1 (Winter 2016), pp. 3-28; Arvind Subramanian,
“How the IMF Failed Greece,” Project Syndicate, August 13, 2015; Edwin M. Truman, The IMF and Euro Area Crises: Review
of a Report from the Independent Evaluation Office, Peterson Institute for International Economics, Policy Brief 16-13,
September 2016; Independent Evaluation Office of the IMF, Greece: Ex Post Evaluation of Exceptional Access under the 2010
Stand-By Arrangement, 2013; Independent Evaluation Office of the IMF, The IMF and the Crises in Greece, Ireland, and
Portugal, 2016.
8 For example, see Olivier Blanchard, “Greece: Past Critiques and the Path Forward,” IMF Blog, July 9, 2015.
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greater detail below, about the size and duration of IMF financing, co-financing arrangements between the
IMF and other creditors, IMF policy flexibility and accountability, IMF policy towards currency unions,
and the seniority of IMF financing.
Should there be limits on IMF financing?
The size of Greece’s IMF programs was unprecedented. The amount a country can borrow from the IMF
is tied to its financial commitment to the IMF, or its “quota” at the IMF.9 Generally, the more a country
contributes to the IMF, the more it can borrow from the IMF during crises. During the Eurozone crisis,
normal access to IMF financing was capped at 600% of the borrowing country’s quota, with procedures
for approving larger programs under exceptional circumstances.10 The IMF programs in Greece, Ireland,
and Portugal were three to five times the normal limit, and the largest programs relative to quota in IMF
history (Figure 2). Although the Eurozone programs were extreme examples, they reflect a broader trend.
IMF programs increased relative to the borrower’s quota starting in 2008, with large programs in Iceland,
Latvia, Hungary, Romania, and Ukraine, among others. Median IMF program size jumped from 75% of
the borrowing country’s quota in the 1980s to 400% in 2008-2017.11
Greece’s programs also highlight a pattern for some countries to become repeat or “serial” borrowers
from the IMF, even though IMF financing was originally designed to provide short-term balance-of-
payments support. With Greece’s back-to-back programs, the government received IMF support for a
total of 5.5 years (between May 2010 and January 2016). Seven years after its first program, Greece
continues to rely on official sector financing, although not currently from the IMF. While the other
Eurozone countries (Ireland, Portugal, and Cyprus) successfully stabilized their economies during a single
IMF program, some countries are frequent borrowers from the IMF. A quarter of IMF members (48
countries) have been on IMF programs for more than half of the years they have belonged to the IMF;
more than a third (70 countries) have been on IMF programs more than 40% of time since joining the
IMF.12 These serial borrowers include a mix of low-income and emerging-market economies.

9 A country’s quota at the IMF is broadly tied to its size in the global economy, but other factors, including openness to trade,
economic variability, and the size of international reserves, also play a role.
10 Normal access to IMF resources during this time period also included a limit of 200% of quota for any 12-month period during
the program, in addition to the 600% of quota limit cumulatively over the lifetime of the program.
11 IMF, Financial Data Query Tool. Based on amounts when agreements were approved; some programs were “augmented”
during the course of the program (for example, Russia in 1998). Median IMF program 75% of the borrowing country’s quota in
the 1980s, 50% in the 1990s, and 65% in the 2000s. Excluding precautionary IMF programs, the median program size since 2008
is 300%.
12 Carmen M. Reinhart and Christoph Trebesch, “The International Monetary Fund: 70 Years of Reinvention,” Journal of
Economic Perspectives, vol. 30, no. 1 (Winter 2016), p. 14.
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Figure 2. IMF Programs, 1952-2017

Source: IMF, Financial Data Query Tool.
Notes: Program amounts when agreement was approved. Programs included those funded from the IMF’s General
Resources Account; figure does not include programs funded by the IMF’s concessional lending facility.
The trend towards larger and repeated IMF programs raises questions about whether there are limits to
what IMF financing can and should be doing. On one hand, lack of clear limits on IMF financing risks
moral hazard: that governments will not adopt prudent economic policies if there is an understanding that
the IMF will “bail them out,” even at a high cost or over a long time period. Larger and repeated
programs can pose risks to donor government contributions to the IMF. More generally, IMF financing
was originally designed to help countries address short-term liquidity issues relating to currency
misalignments. IMF financing was not originally intended to address the types of crises the IMF has
increasingly confronted in recent decades: countries grappling with serious banking or debt crises, where
there are questions about the country’s solvency and the country’s financing needs are large and long-
term. This raises questions about whether IMF financing has strayed from its original mandate, and how
large, longer-term IMF programs fit into the broader international financial architecture, particularly with
the World Bank and other multilateral development banks also focused on large, long-term development
financing.
On the other hand, there are risks to limiting the resources the IMF can deploy during crises. Large IMF
programs post-2008 reflect the severity of the global financial crisis, and it is not clear that the global
economy would have been better off if the IMF had taken a less aggressive response. Large programs
post-2008 also reflect the fact that IMF resources had not increased at the same rate of global GDP and
international economic activity.13 Additionally, serial IMF programs reflect the changing nature of

13 This was a key argument for doubling IMF quota resources, which was implemented in 2016. For more on the IMF reform
package, see CRS Report R42844, IMF Reforms: Issues for Congress, by Rebecca M. Nelson and Martin A. Weiss.
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economic crises, as the types of crises facing countries in recent decades are associated with deeper and
longer drops in economic output.14 If there is a compelling case for large and repeated IMF programs,
which is itself a hotly debated question, there may still be questions about whether IMF policies should be
reformed to reflect the shift in types of crises to which the IMF is responding, and how programs can be
designed to minimize moral hazard.
Should the IMF co-finance programs with other official creditors and if
so, under what circumstances?
At the outset of the Greek crisis, the IMF entered an unprecedented co-financing arrangement with
official European creditors. While the IMF provided a minority share of the total resources in the Greek
packages (Figure 3), co-financing was not by itself unusual in an IMF program. For example, bilateral
commitments supplemented IMF resources during Mexico’s crisis in 1994-1995 and the Asian financial
crisis in 1997-1998.15 However, it was unprecedented for other official creditors to play a formal role with
the IMF in designing and overseeing the program, potentially limiting the independence of the Fund.
Figure 3. IMF Programs in Greece

Source: Independent Evaluation Office of the IMF, The IMF and the Crises in Greece, Ireland, and Portugal, 2016, p. 4;
European Commission, Greece: The Third Economic Adjustment Programme.
Notes: Euros converted to U.S. dollars using exchange rate from the year the program was approved.
Co-financing limited the IMF’s financial commitment to Greece, but the IEO found that the so-called
“troika” arrangement of the IMF, European Commission, and ECB constrained IMF policy decisions and
potentially subjected IMF staff’s technical judgements to political pressure.16 For example, in 2010, some
European creditors insisted debt restructuring should not be on the table for Greece. The concerns of the
Europeans reportedly overrode IMF staff concerns about the sustainability of Greek debt and the use of
debt restructuring as a regular part of the IMF crisis response toolkit. Although the official positions on
debt restructuring for Greece evolved and Greece’s private debt was restructured in 2012, the delay meant
that a large portion of the 2010 program was used to repay Greece’s private creditors, and private sector

14 Carmen M. Reinhart and Christoph Trebesch, “The International Monetary Fund: 70 Years of Reinvention,” Journal of
Economic Perspectives, vol. 30, no. 1 (Winter 2016), pp. 12-13.
15 For more information on IMF and bilateral commitments during key programs in 1990s and early 2000s, see Nouriel Roubini
and Brad Setser, Bailouts or Bail-ins? Responding to Financial Crises in Emerging Economies (Institute for International
Economics, 2004), Table 4.1.
16 Independent Evaluation Office of the IMF, The IMF and the Crises in Greece, Ireland, and Portugal, 2016.
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debt was largely replaced by official sector debt. When Greece did restructure its private debt in 2012, it
had limited impact on Greece’s overall debt level.
The IMF’s experience with the troika arrangement raises questions about whether the IMF should co-
finance programs with other creditors. Based on the experience in Greece, co-financing can be helpful in
reducing the IMF’s financial commitment in a crisis, but problems can arise when the IMF and co-
financing partners are not aligned in terms of goals or beliefs about the correct policy response. If co-
financing is desirable, there are questions about how to structure co-financing arrangements to maximize
effectiveness. This includes the optimal size of IMF financing relative to financing from other creditors
and the process by which the IMF designs and oversees programs with co-financing partners.
The IMF does not have a clear policy on co-financing arrangements, although the issue is likely to remain
salient in coming years.17 The financing needs of countries in crisis have increased over the past several
decades,18 and regional financing arrangements, which provide financial support to member countries
experiencing financial difficulties, have proliferated. In addition to the new Eurozone rescue fund (the
European Stability Mechanism), examples of such funds include the Arab Monetary Fund, the BRICS
(Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) Contingent Reserve Arrangement, the Chiang-Mai
Initiative, the Eurasian Fund for Stabilization and Development, and the Latin American Reserve Fund.
How much policy flexibility should the IMF have?
In an unusual step, the IMF revised its lending safeguards in 2010 to allow the first Greek program to go
forward despite misgivings about the sustainability of Greece’s debt. Greece’s financing needs were
large, but Greece did not meet the criteria required for accessing loans above the normal IMF lending
limits (referred to as “exceptional access” to IMF financing). Specifically, IMF staff could not certify that
Greece met one of the exceptional access criteria—that Greece’s debt would be sustainable under the
program over the medium-term with high probability. However, the IMF believed that the risks from
Greece to the global economy were more significant than the risks of extending a large loan to a country
with a potentially unsustainable level of debt. The Fund changed the exceptional access criteria to make
an exemption for countries that posed a systemic threat to the global economy, allowing the Greek
program to go forward.
The rollout of the policy change was opaque and controversial, because the merits and drawbacks of the
policy for the IMF were not discussed separately from the exigencies of the Greek crisis.19 The “systemic
exemption” was also criticized for increasing the likelihood that the IMF program in Greece would fail,
posing a risk to IMF resources.20 Greece’s missed payments to the IMF in the summer of 2015 are cited
as evidence that these concerns were founded. However, the “systemic exemption” was also invoked for
successful programs in Ireland and Portugal.21 IMF staff debated repealing the systemic exemption in

17 IMF, Stocktaking the Fund’s Engagement with Regional Financing Arrangements, April 11, 2013; IMF, Crisis Program
Review, November 9, 2015.
18 Carmen M. Reinhart and Christoph Trebesch, “The International Monetary Fund: 70 Years of Reinvention,” Journal of
Economic Perspectives, vol. 30, no. 1 (Winter 2016), pp. 3-28.
19 Paul Blustein, Laid Low: The IMF, The Euro Zone, and the First Rescue of Greece, Centre for International Governance
Innovation, CIGI Papers No. 61, April 2105; Susan Schadler, Living with Rules: The IMF’s Exceptional Access Framework and
the 2010 Stand-By Arrangement with Greece, IEO Background Paper, 2016.
20 John B. Taylor, “Obama and the IMF Are Unhappy with Congress? Good,” Wall Street Journal, February 13, 2014; John B.
Taylor, “The Lesson Greece’s Lenders Forgot,” Wall Street Journal, July 9, 2015.
21 Portugal and Ireland’s economies were stabilized at the conclusion of the programs. The governments were able to re-enter
capital markets and repay the IMF early. Edward M. Truman, “IMF Exceptional Access and Reform Legislation: Do Not Link
the Two Issues,” Peterson Institute of International Economics, July 23, 2015.
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2014 and 2015.22 The IMF repealed it in 2016, following congressional legislation that conditioned U.S.
participation in a broader IMF reform package on its repeal (P.L. 114-113).23
The 2010 decision to change a key IMF lending safeguard raises questions about the appropriate balance
between IMF flexibility during crises and adherence to IMF safeguards that protect IMF resources.
Providing the IMF discretion to make policy changes allows the IMF to tap its expertise in unforeseen
and time-sensitive crises. The risk is that the IMF may make policy changes that donor governments do
not support and make the IMF less predictable as an institution. Additionally, the procedure by which the
IMF made the policy change in 2010 raises governance questions relating to transparency and
accountability.
How should the IMF engage with members of currency unions?
Greece’s membership in the Eurozone is another unusual feature of the IMF programs in Greece.
Eurozone members share a common currency and monetary policy, while largely retaining national
control over fiscal and banking policies. The unusual split in economic policy responsibilities between
national and Eurozone-level authorities complicates IMF surveillance and programs.24 While there is
some precedent for IMF support of countries that are members of currency unions (recent examples
include St. Kitts, Benin, and Burkina Faso), Greece was unusual due to the size of its economy and the
euro’s status as a major reserve currency.25
The IMF programs in Greece, as well as in Ireland, Portugal, and Cyprus, treated the crises as crises in
individual members of the Eurozone, rather than a crisis of the Eurozone as a whole.26 The conditionality
focused on policies directly under the purview of the individual member governments, such as fiscal
policies and regulations. Even though the IMF coordinated closely with the ECB, IMF programs did not
include conditionality on policies that applied to the currency union as a whole, particularly monetary and
exchange rate policies. In most IMF programs, such policies would normally be subject to conditionality.
Additionally, IMF programs in the Eurozone also did not specifically address structural imbalances within
the currency union that may have contributed to the crisis, particularly persistent current account
imbalances within the Eurozone, or policy reforms in stronger Eurozone members that could have
supported the crisis response, including policies to boost domestic demand.
The IMF’s experience in Greece raises questions about how the IMF should engage effectively with
currency unions and specific members of a currency union. By focusing on the individual member states
in the Eurozone rather than the Eurozone as a whole, the IMF programs focused on a narrower set of
policy tools than was needed to address the fundamentals of the crisis and imposed more costs of the
crisis adjustment on specific currency union members. However, it is not clear what authority the IMF has
over currency unions as a whole, or members of currency unions that are not in crisis.

22 IMF, The Fund’s Lending Framework and Sovereign Debt—Preliminary Considerations, June 2014. IMF, The Fund’s Lending
Framework and Sovereign Debt—Further Considerations, April 9, 2015.
23 IMF, “IMF Survey: IMF Reforms Policy for Exceptional Access Lending,” January 29, 2016. For more on the IMF reform
package, see CRS Report R42844, IMF Reforms: Issues for Congress, by Rebecca M. Nelson and Martin A. Weiss.
24 For example, see Adam Feibelman, "Europe and the Future of International Monetary Law," vol. 22, no. 1 (2013).
25 Independent Evaluation Office of the IMF, Greece: Ex Post Evaluation of Exceptional Access under the 2010 Stand-By
Arrangement, 2013.
26 Edwin M. Truman, The IMF and Euro Area Crises: Review of a Report from the Independent Evaluation Office, Peterson
Institute for International Economics, Policy Brief 16-13, September 2016.
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The IMF does not have clear guidelines for designing programs in currency unions or currency union
members.27 Questions about IMF programs in currency unions may arise in the future. In addition to the
Eurozone (19 members), other currency unions in the global economy include the Eastern Caribbean
Currency Union (6 members), the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (11 members),28
and the West African Economic and Monetary Union (8 members) (Figure 4). Together, about a quarter
of the IMF’s total membership currently belongs to a currency union. An additional 7 EU members are
expected to join the Eurozone after meeting specific entry criteria.
Figure 4. Currency Unions

Source: Created by the Congressional Research Service.
How secure is the IMF’s preferred creditor status?
When the Greek government fell behind on payments to the IMF in the summer of 2015, it continued to
meet its debt payments to private bondholders.29 This broke with the long-held convention that IMF has
“preferred creditor status:” distressed countries borrowing from the IMF are expected to give priority to
payments to the IMF over payments to all other creditors.30 The Greek government faced strong
incentives to repay private creditors: the payments to private creditors falling due were small, and there
was a market perception that a default on private debt would be “calamitous.”31 The period in which
Greece was in arrears to the IMF was relatively short (less than one month). The Greek government
repaid the missed payments to the IMF after reaching a deal with European creditors that unlocked fresh

27 IMF, Crisis Program Review, November 9, 2015; Independent Evaluation Office of the IMF, The IMF and the Crises in
Greece, Ireland, and Portugal, 2016.
28 Anguilla and Montserrat are also members of the ECCU, but are not independent IMF members.
29 Leo Lewis, “Greece Makes Samurai Bond Repayment,” Financial Times, July 13, 2015.
30 Susan Schadler, The IMF's Preferred Creditor Status: Does it Still Make Sense After the Euro Crisis?, Policy Brief No. 37,
March 2014.
31 Leo Lewis, “Greece Makes Samurai Bond Repayment,” Financial Times, July 13, 2015.
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disbursements of funds. However, the period in which Greece was in arrears created substantial
uncertainty about the stability of IMF finances, since Greece was one of its largest borrowers.
The IMF’s preferred creditor status is viewed as critical to allowing the IMF to work effectively as a
lender of last resort, safeguarding IMF resources, and enabling the IMF to charge relatively low interest
rates.32 The “seniority” of IMF financing is not written in law, but is agreed in principle by IMF member
countries and broadly understood by market participants. Until the Greek crisis, there was a strong
historical record of distressed governments defaulting on other creditors (private creditors, bilateral
creditors, and other multilateral organizations) prior to missing any payments to the IMF.33 It is unclear
whether Greece’s temporary arrears to the IMF are a one-off deviation from a strong historical record, or
whether Greece’s policy choices set a new precedent for future crises. There are questions about how the
IMF could respond if governments and private investors start questioning seniority of IMF financing,
including whether the IMF could continue to function in effect as the lender of last resort in the global
economy.
Conclusion
In the Greek crisis, the IMF is in many ways in uncharted territory: committing significant financing in
back-to-back programs, entering an unusual co-financing arrangement, changing its lending policies,
designing conditionality for a crisis in a major currency union, and facing temporary missed payments
from one of its largest borrowers. However, the Greek crisis unfolded on the heels of the global financial
crisis of 2008-2010, and there was broad agreement that the international economy was too fragile to
sustain another systemic shock. Additionally, the IMF was not the only actor taking extraordinary
measures to protect the global economy. Central banks were pursuing unconventional quantitative easing
programs, many governments were pursuing substantial fiscal stimulus measures, and world leaders
overhauled the international framework for economic cooperation, with the elevation of the G-20 as the
prominent forum for international economic coordination. The IMF was widely viewed as a critical part
of the response to the global financial crisis; in April 2009, G-20 leaders committed to tripling the IMF’s
resources to ensure it could respond effectively to the global financial crisis.34 There is broad consensus
that the IMF contributed to stemming contagion from Greece, consistent with its mandate of promoting
international monetary stability.
However, seven years after the first IMF program for Greece was approved, the economic crisis there
remains acute and there is no clear long-term plan for stabilizing the Greek economy. Although a number
of factors beyond the control of the IMF may have contributed to the current situation in Greece, many
observers have noted policy missteps by the Fund and argued that the Greek crisis has tarnished the
IMF’s reputation.35
The IMF is an international organization that has evolved over time. After a number of major crises,
outside analysts and the IMF itself have evaluated the crisis response, leading to changes in IMF policies
going forward. The IMF’s experience in Greece may be another pivotal crisis that leads to a broader
discussion of IMF policies and its role in the global economy. This could include examination of the
extent to which the size and scope of recent IMF programs have veered from its original mandate to
provide financial support for temporary balance-of-payments crises. In addition, issues could include the

32 Susan Schadler, The IMF's Preferred Creditor Status: Does it Still Make Sense After the Euro Crisis?, Policy Brief No. 37,
March 2014.
33 Matthias Schlegl, Christoph Trebesch, and Mark Wright, “Sovereign Debt Repayments: Evidence on Seniority,” Vox, August
11, 2015.
34 G-20, London Summit, Leaders’ Statement, April 2, 2009.
35 For example, Shawn Donnan, “IMF under Pressure in Washington over Greek Bailout,” Financial Times, March 17, 2017.
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IMF’s interactions with other financing organizations, IMF safeguards that ensure the Fund’s
accountability, and the IMF’s role as a lender of last resort in the global economy.

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