This paper begins with an account of the Asian crisis, its creation and management by international financial institutions (the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank), and the gender impact of their stabilization and structural adjustment programs. Next we consider the new debate on...

Top down spillovers of sovereign default risk can have serious consequences for the private sector in emerging markets. This paper analyzes the effects of these spillovers using firm-level data from 31 emerging market economies. We assess how sovereign risk affects corporate access to...

Output drops are usually associated with major disruption for the residents of affected countries, both directly and often through ensuing, prolonged growth slowdowns. Using a century of data, we document that output drops are more frequent in countries at a lower stage of economic development....

This paper presents the primary institutions and economic policies that have led to Chile’s remarkable record of stability and growth over the past twenty years. The core of this policy stance is the combination of fiscal discipline and an open trade policy regime, together with carefully...

Since 2004 Egypt's growth has been accelerating in step with the launching of a series of ambitious reforms, reversing a trend during the preceding half-decade when Egypt's growth rate fell below that of most regional peers and well below that of the average developing country. This paper seeks...

The member countries of the International Monetary Fund collaborate to try to assure orderly exchange arrangements and promote a stable system of exchange rates, recognizing that the essential purpose of the international monetary system is to facilitate the exchange of goods, services, and...

The IMF attempts to stabilize private capital flows to emerging markets by providing public monitoring and emergency finance. In analyzing its role we contrast cases where banks and bondholders do the lending. Banks have a natural advantage in monitoring and creditor coordination, while bonds...

This paper argues that the free-trade policies of both the WTO and the IMF fail to recognise that the import consumer durable goods generate a defence liability that can only be internalised through tariffs. The argument presented here, which is based on the Thompson-Hickson hypothesis on...

Examines the evolution of the role of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), created in 1930 to promote co-operation between central banks, into the arena of the Third World debt problem. The bank has extended loans to developing countries, such as Mexico, Argentina, Nigeria and Brazil...