The IMF’s Missed Opportunity

Stanley Fischer’s departure as First Deputy Managing Director of the IMF provided an ideal opportunity to re-examine the Fund’s “Washington Consensus” ideology of privatization, liberalization (especially trade liberalization), and macro-stabilization. That ideology reigned supreme throughout Mr. Fischer’s tenure. By naming Ann Krueger as his replacement, however, the IMF has elevated one of orthodoxy’s high priestesses, and this signals a stubborn adherence to the failed past rather than a hopeful new direction for the future.