User:AbhinavMurali/United States and the International Monetary Fund

Initial Plans
White, confirmed by the Senate in 1946 as the US Executive Director of the Fund, played an integral role in the formation of the IMF alongside John Maynard Keynes at the Conference. He authored the White Plan, the initial proposal for the IMF in conjunction with the United Kingdom's Keynes plan, and made substantial contributions to the Joint Statement by Experts on the Establishment of an International Monetary Fund .The Joint Statement would eventually become the Articles of Agreement of the IMF, which outline its structure, its key functions, and the duties of its member countries. Under White's leadership, the American delegation to the Bretton-Woods cemented the US's role in charting the future of the IMF. For instance, it played a substantial role in the establishment of quotas for each country, with Fred M. Vinson, the Vice-Chairman of the US delegation, heading the ad-hoc committee in charge of this task.

Impact of the US on the IMF
As a result of its powerful status within the IMF, the United States has been recognized as a strong influencer of IMF policy. A University of Chicago study on the US's influence on IMF conditionality towards debtor nations found that closer allies of the US were given fewer conditions, with the assumption that more conditions means more constrains on the debtor. A statistical study conducted by Boston University-affiliated Strom Thacker also found that a country that measurably moves closer to the US (by voting similarly, for example) is much more likely to get a loan from the IMF. On the other hand, a 2003 study published in The International Organization attributed the changes in IMF conditionality to private financiers, establishing a significant positive correlation between increases in bank-friendly conditions and private influence. Although it also found that US allies were less likely to get more bank conditions, it argued that this negative correlation proves that the conditionality changes were not driven by powerful states like the US.