Monday, June 13, 2011

IMF candidate conflict of interest?

Mexican central baker Carstens has developed a novel argument that a European head of the IMF would have a conflict of interest given that any bail-out of the EU PIGS would include the IMF. The borrowers will be managing the fund as the lead creditor.

In fact, an IMF second bail-out of say Greece would be a bail-out of the French banks. Candidate Lagarde is the Finance Minister of France. How hard would a European bargain at this time given the EU would be a beneficiary. This argument would not hold for past Europeans since their nomination was not occurring during an EU crisis. Who would Lagarde represent?

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