Antonio Borges

Who is he: Antonio Borges is Director of the IMF's European Department. Borges holds a Ph.D in Economics from Stanford University and was Chairman of the Hedge Fund Standards Board in London before joining the IMF.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), announced in October 2010 that Borges would occupy the post of Director of the European Department of the IMF. Borges, a Portuguese national, was Chairman of the Hedge Fund Standards Board in London at the time. Borges succeeded Marek Belka, who left the IMF to become Governor of the Central Bank of Poland.

Strauss-Kahn said of the appointment, "Mr. Borges brings a remarkable combination of public sector, private sector, and academic experience, and has proven strategic and organizational leadership skills. Borges is ideally suited to take charge of the Fund's work in Europe at this critical time."

In fact, Borges is a typical IMF functionary, someone whose experience is basically academic and bureaucratic. The IMF itself is full of such academically oriented individuals, and they believe in the nostrums the IMF peddles without much evidence to confirm these prescriptions actually work.

In the case of Greece, Borges famously maintained in early 2011 that no adjustments to the draconian austerity-and-loan program were needed, even though the IMF and the Eurozone had just had a secret meeting on the topic.

What Borges continues to hope is that that the Eurozone and Greece in particular will "grow" its way out of his debt problems. This is at least a questionable assumption given the slow-growth and no-growth woes of the EU's Southern PIGS generally. Nonethless, this is the kind of prescription that the IMF for all its vaunted economic cures comes up with regularly: Cut costs and wait.

Background: Antonio Borges has a Ph.D in Economics from Stanford University. Borges was Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Goldman Sachs International in London from 2000 to 2008, and Professor of Economics and Dean of the Business School at INSEAD, Fontainebleau from 1993 to 2000.

Borges served as Deputy Governor of the Banco de Portugal during 1990-93. Borges has also been a Visiting Professor of Economics at the New University of Lisbon, Stanford University, and Portuguese Catholic University.