The G-8 debt relief proposal, if adopted, should have little impact on the rational and operational aspects of the shocks window, but it may affect some of the financing consideratins, which are taken up in the page on "The G-8 Debt Cancellation Proposal and its Implications for the Fund

At the Executive Board discussion on the role of the Fund in low-income countries, Directors requested proposals to address the absence of concessional instruments other than the PRGF in the Fund's financial assistance to low-income members facing exogenous shocks. Against this background, this...

The dynamic responses of a developing economy to a variety of policy and external shocks are studied using an empirical macroeconomic model which embodies rational expectations, perfect capital mobility, and import rationing. These features, which are relatively new in developing-country...

This paper investigates the impact of long-run terms-of-trade shocks. Analytically, we show that, if capital goods are largely importable or the labor supply is sufficiently elastic, then natural-resource booms increase aggregate investment and worsen the current account, but Dutch ‘Disease’...

Low-income countries are being hit hard by the global financial crisis. They are facing a sharp contraction in export growth, FDI inflows, and remittances, and lower-than-committed aid. But a marked recovery is in prospect for 2010 helped by rising world demand and supported by short-term...

While the impact of the global crisis has been severe, real per capita GDP growth stayed positive in two-thirds of low-income countries (LICs), unlike in previous global downturns, and in contrast to richer countries. The crisis affected LICs not so much through the terms of trade or global...

We cannot allow the return of economic stability to signify a return to "business as usual" for the IMF. The crisis exposed huge cracks in the international financial architecture of which the Fund is a key part. We have an historic responsibility to fix them. I urge all of us to recommit to...

This paper examines the generation of financial crises in developing economies and shows that the microeconomic structure of the financial sector is a crucial factor in creating the conditions for a crisis. Structural problems of the financial system in developing countries, including implicit...

What is the human cost of the global economic crisis? This year’s Global Monitoring Report, The MDGs after the Crisis, examines the impact of the worst recession since the Great Depression on poverty and human development outcomes in developing countries. Although the recovery is under way,...