Skyfall: A Survival Analysis of the IMF Executive Board Members

ABSTRACT In the absence of a retirement age constraint at the IMF, this study explores the tenure persistence within the Board of Directors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from 2009 to 2021, through a survival analysis. The findings highlight that extrinsic factors, namely sovereign crises, banking crises, the ratio of debt‐to‐GDP, and political transformations, exert a predominant role in tenure longevity, while sociodemographic characteristics such as age, education, or gender have a negligible influence. In summary, survival within this board is primarily governed by geopolitical and economic variables rather than by individual attributes.