Business Finance Homework Help

1- Hi Class,

The idea of having an International Monetary Fund started in July 1944 at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire where 44 nations agreed to rebuild Europe after World War II.  The IMF was born in 1946 in Washington, D.C. 39 countries members. Furthermore, the IMF role is to encourage international monetary cooperation through a permanent institution which provides the machinery for consultation and collaboration on international monetary problems. Also, the IMF can ease the expansion and balanced growth of international trade, and to pay thereby to the promotion and maintenance of high levels of employment and real income and to the development of the productive resources of all members as primary objectives of economic policy. In addition to, the IMF helps exchange stability, to maintain orderly exchange arrangements among members, and to avoid competitive exchange depredation. Fourth, the IMF supports in the establishment of a multilateral system of payments in respect of current transactions between members and in the elimination of foreign exchange restrictions which hamper the growth of world trade. Lastly, they transfer confidence to members by making the general resources of the Fund temporarily available to them under adequate safeguards, thus providing them with opportunity to correct maladjustments in their balance of payments without resorting to measures destructive of national or international prosperity (Fieleke, 1994).

In addition to, the IMF provides loans to members that cannot payout their debts; however, they will also come to their members and assist them to fix their monetary troubles. As a result, the IMF will get back their money and be an institution of guidance and cooperation against poverty and poor financial planning.

Reference

Fieleke, N. S. (1994, September-October). The International Monetary Fund 50 years after Bretton Woods. New England Economic Review, 17+. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A16467004/ITBC?u=li…

2-During the 1930s, the Great Depression brought about bombing economies. The fall of the highest quality level drove nations to raise exchange obstructions, downgrade their monetary standards to contend with each other for send out business sectors and reduce use of unfamiliar trade by their residents. Every one of these components prompted declining world exchange, high joblessness, and plunging expectations for everyday comforts in numerous nations. In 1944, the Bretton Woods Agreement set up another worldwide financial framework. The formation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank were two of its most suffering inheritances (Lipscy, 2015).

The World Bank and the IMF, frequently called the Bretton Woods Institutions, are twin intergovernmental columns supporting the structure of the world’s monetary and budgetary request. Both have taken on growing jobs, and there have been recharged requires extra development of their obligations, especially in the proceeding with nonattendance of a solitary worldwide money related arrangement. The two organizations may appear to have confounding or covering capacities. Be that as it may, while a few similitudes exist, they are two unmistakable associations with various jobs. 

The designers of the Bretton Woods Agreement, John Maynard Keynes and Harry Dexter White, imagined an organization that would direct the global financial framework, trade rates, and worldwide installments to empower nations and their residents to purchase products and ventures from one another. They expected that this new worldwide element would guarantee conversion scale solidness and urge its part nations to dispose of the trade limitations that obstructed exchange. Authoritatively, the IMF appeared in December 1945 with 29 part nations. 

In 1947, the organization’s first proper year of activities, the French turned into the primary country to get from the IMF. Throughout the following thirty years, more nations joined the IMF, remembering some African nations for the 1960s (Fioretos& Heldt, 2019). The Soviet alliance countries remained the special case and were not part of the IMF until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The IMF encountered another enormous increment in individuals during the 1990s with the expansion of Russia; Russia was additionally positioned on the IMF’s leader panel. Today, 187 nations are individuals from the IMF; 24 of those nations or gatherings of nations are spoken to on the leader board(Fioretos & Heldt, 2019).

Reference:

Fioretos, O., & Heldt, E. C. (2019). Legacies and innovations in global economic governance since Bretton Woods. Review of International Political Economy, 26(6), 1089–1111.

Lipscy, P. Y. (2015). Explaining institutional change:?: policy areas, outside options, and the Bretton woods institutions. American Journal of Political Science, 59(2), 341–356.

3-excellent input in this week discussion, in the summary of your argument; according to Salvatore (2016), the IMF initially had three primary functions: overseeing a system of pegged (but adjustable) exchange rates, promoting currency convertibility to foster international trade, and acting as lender of last resort for countries facing short term balance of payments crises. Some of these functions have changed, but the original goals remain surprisingly unaltered. The Special Drawing Right (SDR) is an international reserve asset created by the IMF to supplement existing foreign exchange reserves. It serves as a unit of account for the IMF and other international and regional organizations and is the base against which some countries peg the exchange. 

The IMF no longer presides over a system of fixed exchange rates, as documented in Brigham and Ehrhardt (2016), since no such system exists. However, it still aims to monitor the world’s monetary system and provide financial support (attached policy conditions). In addressing your issues on the Bretton Woods, according to Brigham and Ehrhardt (2016), the currency arrangement negotiated at Bretton Woods and monitored by the IMF worked well during the post-WWII era of reconstruction and growth in world trade. However, widely diverging monetary and fiscal policies, differential inflation rates, and various currency shocks resulted in its demise. The U.S. dollar became the primary reserve currency held by central banks, resulting in a consistent and growing balance of payments deficit, which required a substantial capital outflow of dollars to finance these deficits and meet the growing demand for dollars from investor’s businesses. Eventually, foreigners’ substantial overhang of dollars resulted in a lack of confidence in the U.S.’s ability to meet its commitment to convert dollars to gold. The lack of confidence forced President Richard Nixon to suspend official purchases or sales of gold by the U.S. Treasury on August 15, 1971. Has the IMF lost its relevance to the world’s wealthiest countries from the literature you have read thus far?

Reference

Brigham, E. F. & Ehrhardt, M. C. (2016). Financial management: Theory and practice. (13th Ed.). Mason, OH: Southwestern Cengage Learning.

Salvatore, D. (2016). Introduction to International Economics. 3rd edition. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.