depending on the size of their economy, and they can apply for cheap loans from that fund. When the Bretton Woods fixed-exchange system was abandoned in 1971, the IMF's role changed. It began to impose strict conditions on its loans. From heavily influenced by neoliberal ideas (pp.172-77, which advocated privatization and cutting government spending. Economists have criticized the IMF for making crises worse, such as the East Asian crisis of the late 1990s.