This paper attempts to set out the principal issues that need to be resolved in formulating a proposal for quotas and voice reform in the IMF that could command broad support. Following John Rawls, we argue that ""justice is the first virtue of social institutions,"" and we use his theory of...

Economic adjustment and reform programs, including those supported by international financial institutions (IFIs), must cope with informational asymmetries and special interest politics. This presents a particularly serious issue when IFIs make structural economic reforms a condition for...

A model reflecting the monetary approach to the balance of payments was developed in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the 1950s. Its purpose was to integrate monetary, income, and balance of payments analysis, and it became the basis of the conditionality applied to IMF credits....

The paper examines the principles on which a reform of a Quota based global economic institution like the IMF must be based, taking account of both the relative economic power of countries and the need for voice and representation of the poor countries. These principles are then used in the...

Should a closed economy open its trade to all countries or limit itself to participation in regional trade agreements (RTAs)? Based on time-series evidence for a data set for 1950-92, this paper estimates and compares the growth performance of countries that liberalized broadly and those that...

In the Doha Round, negotiators are discussing the elimination or continuation of the special agricultural safeguards introduced by the Uruguay Round as well as the creation of special safeguard mechanism for use by developing countries. This paper argues that, in violation of the spirit of the...

This paper examines the mechanisms through which output volatility is related to trade openness using an industry-level panel dataset of manufacturing production and trade. The main results are threefold. First, sectors more open to international trade are more volatile. Second, trade is...