This paper examines the impact of the opening up of Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union on Western Europe. The analysis suggests that given reasonable (yet necessarily imprecise) assumptions on the likely developments in the previously centrally planned economies (PCPEs) over the next ten...

This note provides a set of high-level recommendations that can guide national regulatory and supervisory responses to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic and offers an overview of measures taken across jurisdictions to date. The banking sector plays a critical role in mitigating the...

This paper explores how banking sector developments and characteristics influence the propagation of risks from the banking sector to sovereign debt, including how they affect the extent of fiscal costs of banking crises when those occur. It then proposes practices and policies for the fiscal...

This paper describes a financial system that should be adopted for the 21st century. The paper highlights that the financial crisis of 2008 has raised fundamental questions about how the financial industry is structured, managed, and regulated. The paper discusses that a well-functioning...

Full text also available in Arabic, Chinese, French, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish. Despite signs of recovery and resilience in some economies, global growth continues to disappoint, with the expected pick-up driven primarily by emerging markets. This persistent underperformance has exposed...

The Managing Director's Global Policy Agenda (GPA) presented to the IMFC last month highlights the challenges associated with a rapidly changing and uncertain world. The limited room for policy maneuver and the need to adapt to new realities pose difficult trade-offs between supporting demand...

The thrust of the report's recommendations to strengthen the institutional framework for self-evaluation, adapt it over time to changing circumstances, and better disseminate lessons from self-evaluation are well taken. I believe, however, that there is considerable scope to address these...