A sketch of the International Monetary Fund's 70-year history reveals an institution that has reinvented itself over time along multiple dimensions. This history is primarily consistent with a "demand driven" theory of institutional change, as the needs of its clients and the type of crisis...

Cover -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Executive Summary -- Ch 1. A Decade of Debt -- I. Introduction -- II. Surges in Public Debt -- III. The Financial Crash-Sovereign Debt Crisis Sequence -- IV. Debt and Growth -- V. The Aftermath of High Debt: The 1930s and World War II -- VI....