Top policymakers worry today that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) risks 'slipping into obscurity'. What explains the IMF's declining influence? Two significant developments have been the declining demand for IMF loans from middle-income borrowers, and the emergence of a more critical view...

As the world experiences its worst financial crisis since the 1930s, policymakers are increasingly calling for a “Bretton Woods II”. To claim the mantle of the 1944 conference, officials will need to be more creative about global financial reform than they have been so far in the three areas...