Central bank or International Monetary Fund lending should be regarded as a line of credit, analogous to private line-of-credit products. Contractual provisions in private line-of-credit arrangements are designed to control managerial moral hazard and provide a means for profit-maximizing...

This consideration of central bank lending as a publicly provided line of credit begins by describing how private line-of-credit contracts control moral hazard and limit lending to insolvent borrowers. The fundamental problem for a central bank is to credibly commit to limit its lending. Failure...

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 International Monetary Fund (IMF, or the Fund) has been uninterruptedly providing concessional financing to low-income countries since 1976. This financing has been channeled practically in its entirety under the same financial instrument, namely a voluntary participation trust fund that is...