Policy Papers
2010
June 11, 2010
Resolution of Cross-Border Banks - A Proposed Framework for Enhanced Coordination
Description: The recent financial crisis has given renewed urgency to the need for resolution systems for financial institutions, which both safeguard financial stability and limit moral hazard. However, experience demonstrates that these systems will not be effective unless progress is also made in developing a framework that applies on a cross-border basis. Since many systemically important financial groups operate globally, an uncoordinated application of resolution systems by national authorities will make it much more difficult to both secure the continuity of essential functions (thereby limiting contagion), and ensure that shareholders and creditors bear the financial burden of the resolution process.
June 10, 2010
Technical Assistance Evaluation Program - Findings of Evaluations and Updated Program
Description: Technical Assistance (TA) is one of the IMF’s core activities whose purpose is to help member countries improve the design and implementation of their macroeconomic policies. To ensure that the Fund’s TA meets the needs of the membership, and is efficient and effective, the Executive Board established in 2002 the TA Evaluation Program. Under this program, announced to the Executive Board on a three-year rolling schedule, each year a number of evaluations are carried out. These consist of self-assessments by IMF departments providing TA plus independent assessments of donor-financed TA. Since 2003, more than two dozen TA evaluations were produced, covering all IMF TA departments plus the IMF’s Regional Technical Assistance Centers (RTACs). Periodically the IMF staff submits to the Executive Board a review of the findings of the TA evaluation reports produced during the preceding period.
June 3, 2010
Fourteenth General Review of Quotas - Updated Data Set and Quota Calculations
Description: This paper updates the quota data base through 2008 and discusses implications for members’ calculated quota shares. A subsequent staff paper will review key issues related to the realignment of quota shares and present additional illustrative simulations, for discussion by the Committee of the Whole in early July.
May 27, 2010
Central Banking Lessons from the Crisis
Description: The crisis brought the financial system to the verge of systemic collapse and raised the prospect of depression and deflation. Central banks helped defuse these threats, including through exceptional measures. Considerable efforts are now under way to draw policy lessons from the crisis. For central banks, the crisis seems to provide three important lessons for policy frameworks—mainly concerning systemic financial stability.
May 24, 2010
Statement by the Managing Director on the Work Program of the Executive Board - Executive Board Meeting - May 24, 2010
Description: Recent events make clear that the global economy remains vulnerable, and that important work remains to be done to secure the recovery and prevent future crises. We must adapt to new challenges and ensure that the institution is equipped with the right tools to assess pressing risks to global stability and, when crisis prevention efforts are not enough, with the right instruments to restore confidence.
April 30, 2010
From Stimulus to Consolidation - Revenue and Expenditure Policies in Advanced and Emerging Economies
Description:
This paper identifies policy tools to support fiscal consolidation in the years ahead. Its starting point is the analysis in the recent Board papers describing strategies for fiscal consolidation (IMF, 2010a, 2010b), which showed that on current trends, general government debt in advanced countries would rise 36 percentage points of GDP during 2007–14, and that age-related spending (health and pension) would rise rapidly later, further adding to fiscal pressures. Trends are more favorable in emerging economies, but adjustments are needed there too.
Also Available in Russian
April 23, 2010
Key Issues Note by the IMF Managing Director to the IMFC on the Global Economy and Financial Markets—Outlook and Policy Responses
Description: Securing the recovery. The global recovery has been better than expected. The WEO projections see global output expanding by about 4¼ percent in 2010 and 2011. Extraordinary and coordinated policy intervention since the crisis has all but eliminated the risk of another Great Depression, laying the foundation for recovery. Nevertheless, the recovery is proceeding at varying speeds—it is tepid and policy-dependent in many advanced economies, but solid in most emerging and developing economies.
April 22, 2010
PP4463-Proposal-for-a-Post-Catastrophe-Debt-Relief-Trust-Fund
Description: This paper proposes a new trust fund that would enable the IMF to join international debt relief efforts for Haiti and other low-income countries hit by similar catastrophic disasters. Following the devastation caused by the recent earthquake in Haiti, an international consensus emerged that creditors should consider full debt relief to support Haiti’s recovery. Haiti’s debt to the IMF stands at SDR 178 million.
April 21, 2010
Progress Report on the Activities of the Independent Evaluation Office
Description: Since its last report to the IMFC in October 2009, the IEO has completed its evaluation report on IMF Interactions with Member Countries and finalized issues papers for evaluations on the IMF Performance in the Run-up to the Current Financial and Economic Crisis and Research at the IMF: Relevance and Utilization. On February 1, Moisés Schwartz assumed his duties as the third Director of the IEO.
April 21, 2010
Executive Board Progress Report to the IMFC on the Reform of Fund Governance
Description: Reform package. Comprehensive reform of Fund governance—encompassing quotas, ministerial engagement and oversight, the size and composition of the Executive Board, voting rules, management selection, and staff diversity—is essential to enhancing the Fund’s long-term legitimacy and effectiveness. Although the elements of such a reform are being discussed sequentially, and some could be taken up sooner, most will need to be decided as a package, given the linkages and trade-offs.