In November 2011, the G-20 endorsed an action plan to support the development of local currency bond markets (LCBM). International institutions-the IMF, the World Bank, the EBRD, and the OECD-were asked to draw on their experience to develop a diagnostic framework (DF) to identify general...

This study examines the relative importance of political and economic variables in the determination of a country’s standing in credit ratings provided by commercial rating agencies. It finds that creditworthiness appears to be determined primarily by economic variables. While including...

A Development Emergency: the title of this year's Global Monitoring Report, the sixth in an annual series, could not be more apt. The global economic crisis, the most severe since the Great Depression, is rapidly turning into a human and development crisis. No region is immune. The poor...

IMF economists work closely with member countries on a variety of issues. Their unique perspective on country experiences and best practices on global macroeconomic issues are often shared in the form of books on diverse topics such as cross-country comparisons, capacity building, macroeconomic...