Q.What is a country's 'quota' in the IMF, and what two things does it determine?

Every IMF member is assigned a specific financial contribution on joining, and this single number carries more than one consequence.

A quota is the amount of capital a member country subscribes to the IMF on joining, paid mainly in its own currency and partly in Special Drawing Rights or widely-used reserve currencies. Quotas are periodically reviewed and can be adjusted to reflect a country's relative position in the world economy.

A member's quota determines two distinct things:

1. Voting power — within the Board of Governors and Executive Board, a country's votes are broadly proportional to its quota, meaning larger, wealthier economies (such as the United States) hold larger voting shares than smaller economies.
2. Access to Fund resources — the amount a member can normally borrow from the IMF in a balance-of-payments crisis is set as a multiple of its own quota, so a larger quota also means greater potential access to Fund assistance.

This is why quota reviews are a politically significant issue for emerging economies like India — a quota increase would raise both India's voting influence and its borrowing capacity.

Assuming every member country has equal voting power at the IMF, as in the UN General Assembly's one-country-one-vote system — IMF voting is quota-weighted, not equal.