Senior fellow Arvind Subramanian was quoted in a Reuters article about Christine Lagarde and the IMF.
From the Article
French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde is set to be named the IMF's new chief on Tuesday after the United States and leading emerging markets endorsed her, maintaining Europe's grasp on the top job.
The International Monetary Fund's 24-strong board was meeting to go through the formalities of picking a successor to former IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who resigned in May to defend himself against charges of sexual assault against a New York hotel maid.
Lagarde, 55, is expected to get the majority of support from IMF member countries guaranteeing her win over Mexico's Central Bank Governor Agustin Carstens and making her the first woman to lead the global institution.
Assuming she gets the official nod, Lagarde will have to immediately deal with an IMF-EU effort to keep debt-stricken Greece afloat and focus on potentially thorny IMF "spillover reports" that analyze the economic and policy actions of the world's major economies.
Brazil said on Tuesday it would back Lagarde, a surprising decision given most countries in Latin America support Carstens.
With support from major emerging powers Brazil, China and Russia already clear, the United States moved to cement Lagarde's victory with an early morning statement.
"Minister Lagarde's exceptional talent and broad experience will provide invaluable leadership for this indispensable institution at a critical time for the global economy," U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in a statement.
"EXCEPTIONAL TALENT"
The race has been one of the most hotly contested succession battles in IMF history as emerging market nations expressed displeasure with the 64-year tradition of having a European head the IMF and an American lead its sister institution, the World Bank.
In the end, the lack of backing from major emerging nations sunk Carstens despite his support from Latin America, Canada and Australia.
Geithner nodded to the unhappiness among developing countries at European-U.S. dominance of the two pre-eminent international financial institutions, but noted Lagarde had won broad support. The United States, which holds the most voting power at the IMF, had refused until the final stage of the process to say who it was supporting.
"The only reason the outcome didn't match what (developing nations) wanted was because emerging market countries did not grab the opportunity," said Arvind Subramanian, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute and the Center for Global Development think tanks in Washington.
"If China, Brazil, India and some others had thrown their weight behind Carstens, the U.S. would have been in a very difficult situation," he added.