Miscellaneous Publication (Other)

May 21, 2020

COVID-19: The Regulatory and Supervisory Implications for the Banking Sector: A Joint IMF-World Bank Staff Position Note

Description: This joint IMF-World Bank note provides a set of high-level recommendations that can guide national regulatory and supervisory responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and offers an overview of measures taken across jurisdictions to date.

April 12, 2011

Markets and Government before, during, and after the 2007-20xx Crisis

Description: Markets and Government before, during, and after the 2007-20xx Crisis

March 6, 2009

Impact of the Global Financial Crisis on Sub-Saharan Africa

Description: Impact of the Global Financial Crisis on Sub-Saharan Africa

January 26, 2009

International Monetary Fund Administrative Tribunal Reports, Volume II, 2000-2002

Description: This paper discusses that during 2000–2002, the Tribunal considered a number of issues of substantive law upon which it had not previously been called upon to rule. These included interpretation of a provision of the IMF’s Staff Retirement Plan that permits the IMF, pursuant to specified procedures, to give effect to orders for family support and division of marital property issued by domestic courts. Having the benefit of the extensive pleadings of all three parties, the Tribunal rendered a decision resolving the merits of the dispute. The Tribunal considered the evidence offered by the IMF in support of the differential in benefits between the two categories of staff and concluded that the distinction was rationally related to the purposes of the employment benefits at issue. Tribunal also grappled during 2000–2002 with the complexities of its relationship to other elements of the IMF’s dispute resolution system. The IMFAT addressed the question of the admissibility before the Tribunal of an Application following dismissal of the complaint as untimely by the IMF’s Grievance Committee.

September 30, 2008

The Approach to Macroeconomic Management: How It Has Evolved

Description: The Approach to Macroeconomic Management: How It Has Evolved

Notes: Per Jacobsson Foundation Lecture by Lord George, formerly Governor of the Bank of England, (Basel)

December 12, 2007

Balance of Payments Imbalances, by Alan Greenspan

Description: This paper focuses on the developing countries, which accounted for nearly half the value of those surpluses, were apparently unable to find sufficiently profitable investments at home that overcame market and political risk. The United States a decade ago likely could not have run up today’s near $800 billion annual deficit for the simple reason that we could not have attracted the foreign savings to finance it. In 1995, for example, total cross-border saving was less than $300 billion. The long-term updrift in this broader swath of unconsolidated deficits and mostly offsetting surpluses of economic entities has been persistent but gradual for decades, probably generations. However, the component of that broad set that captures only the net foreign financing of the imbalances of the individual US economic entities, our current account deficit, increased from negligible in the early 1990s to 6.2 percent of our GDP by 2006.

September 7, 2005

Review of the 2002 Conditionality Guidelines

Description: This paper focuses on the fact that the 2004–2005 conditionality review expands to include a review of the application of the new Guidelines on Conditionality, adopted in 2002. These guidelines were the culmination of a comprehensive and far-reaching review of conditionality that aimed to enhance the effectiveness of IMF-supported programs. They represented the first revision of the IMF’s conditionality guidelines since 1979, and were developed by the IMF after seeking input from civil society and public forums held in several countries. This review comes at an early stage of experience with the new guidelines, and further evidence will be needed before definite conclusions can be drawn. The ultimate test of conditionality is whether it contributes to better economic outcomes, including over the medium term, and these cannot yet be gauged. Moreover, although this review draws in part on case studies, no substitute exists for cross-country analysis for identifying broad trends, and at this stage such analysis is hampered by small sample sizes.

April 15, 2005

Reconstructing Afghanistan

Description: This book, which reflects the IMF staff's work in Afghanistan from early 2002 through the first quarter of 2004, provides an overview of the institutional and economic achievements in Afghanistan in the post-Taliban period, that is, from late 2001 to early 2004. During this period, the staff focused on helping (often under difficult circumstances) the Afghan authorities quickly establish abasic framework for economic management and policies, including rebuilding key institutions. Reconstructing Afghanistan describes the strong economic recovery that took place during 2002 and 2003; traces the formulation and implementation of the government’s budgetary policy; discusses the progress made in rebuilding fiscal institutions; and outlines the challenges and issues that the authorities faced in the area of monetary and exchange rate policy.

September 30, 2004

Some New Directions for Financial Stability?

Description: This paper presents the functional responsibilities of a central bank which is required to maintain systemic financial stability without having supervisory oversight of individual financial institutions. Although the Financial Services Authority (FSA) has responsibility for supervising individual financial institutions, the central bank retains responsibility for the smooth running of the domestic payments system and, by extension, oversight of the structure and soundness of the clearing and settlement systems of the main financial markets, money and bond markets, the foreign exchange market, and the equity market. A second, associated function, thrown into prominence by 9/11, is to undertake contingency planning against a major physical disruption of markets, whether by terrorism or natural causes. A third role, perhaps the best-known component in this portfolio of operational tasks, is to provide injections of liquidity, either to the financial system as a whole via open market operations or via lender-of-last-resort (LOLR) actions to individual institutions. A problem with such latter LOLR operations is that they might put taxpayers’ money at risk.

September 27, 2004

Stress Testing Financial Systems

Description: Stress testing is becoming a widely used tool to assess potential vulnerabilities in a financial system. This booklet is intended to answer some of the basic questions that may arise as part of the process of stress testing. The pamphlet begins with a discussion of stress testing in a financial system context, highlighting some of the differences between stress tests of systems and of individual portfolios. The booklet provides an overview of the process itself, from identifying vulnerabilities, to constructing scenarios, to interpreting the results. The experience of the IMF in conducting stress testing as part of the Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) is also discussed.