The International Monetary Fund: A review of the recent evidence

A review of recent quantitative studies on the International Monetary Fund reveals that much of the conventional wisdom is incorrect. Recent studies have demonstrated a new degree of methodological rigor, have drawn more heavily upon insights from political science, and have asked a number of new questions. We review studies of participation in IMF programs, design of IMF conditionality, implementation and enforcement of IMF conditions, conventional program effects and catalytic effects. At every stage, we find substantial evidence of the influence of major IMF shareholders, of the Fund’s own organizational imperatives, and of domestic politics within borrowing countries. We conclude that very little is known with certainty about the effects of IMF lending, but that a great deal has been learned about the mechanics of IMF programs that will have to be taken into account in order to obtain unbiased estimates of those effects.

The International Monetary System and the Global Financial Crisis

The international monetary system has experienced three main phases： the gold standard, the Bretton Woods system and the Jamaica arrangement or de facto U.S. dollar standard. The current global financial crisis is mostly a result of the U.S. abusing its privileges. It was a crisis that sent shock waves through the system itself and exposed its drawbacks.     

国际货币基金组织对印度经济增长的观察和建议

国际货币基金组织每年对其成员国都进行宏观经济和政策的咨询并形成相应的报告,根据ArticleIV,向印度的咨询连续两年对公众公开,使得我们得以了解IMF对印度经济发展的观点。     

The politics of performance evaluation: Independent evaluation at the International Monetary Fund

How has the Fund institutionalized independent evaluation as a means of assessing its performance? This paper process-traces the contentious creation of the Fund’s Independent Evaluation Office (IEO). I use primary interviews conducted at the Fund headquarters in 2008–2010 and Fund archive documents dating back to the beginning of the debate over independent evaluation in 1992 to analyze the interaction of internal and external actors and interests that led finally to the creation of the IEO in 2001. I then comment on the ‘performance of the performance evaluator.’ I draw from a recent external evaluation of the IEO (Lissakers et al. 2006), as well as interviews and secondary sources, to identify enduring contestation over the IEO’s function and scope of authority and to discern how this has affected the ability of the IEO to inform and shape the Fund’s process and outcome performance. To this end, I discuss four issues currently facing the IEO: the need to establish both actual and perceived independence, the problems of ambiguous or non-existent metrics for assessing Fund performance, difficulties in balancing candor of evaluation reports with credibility in the eyes of multiple constituencies, and the challenges of fostering a culture of learning in the Fund.     

透视美国金融危机:全球经济与国际货币体系的双失衡

美国金融危机的爆发是全球性经济失衡的结果,长期的超前消费经济模式导致美国财政和贸易的"双赤字",当美国与外部经济的循环被打断,国内的经济失衡便引发了金融危机.自2007年美国次贷危机爆发以来,危机逐步从金融领域蔓延到实体经济领域,并在经济全球化的背景下通过美元的世界货币地位传导到世界各国.