At their London summit in April 2009 the G20 proposed major changes in the governance of the International Monetary Fund (IMF): a reallocation of voting shares to emerging and developing countries, an antedated reform of the quota system, a delinking of the managing director's election from...

The question whether European Monetary Union should include all the EC countries from the start or should initially be limited to a few core countries is again being discussed more intensely. What advantages would a small EMU have from an economic point of view? Which countries should be its...

The United Nations Development Program has published its Human Development Index values for most countries of the world for the past five years. It claims the index provides information that goes beyond the widely-used GDP data and is relevant for policy-making. Critical examination shows that...

The debt crisis of the developing countries, which loomed so large at the beginning of the eighties, appears for the time being to have been overcome. However, under the surface problems are growing that could give a debt crisis among the developing countries an entirely new dimension. Under...