The paper identifies key features of International Monetary Fund (IMF)-supported programs following the 2008 global financial crisis. The statistical analysis of a large sample of countries that borrowed from the IMF during 1997-2013 indicates that, compared to the amount of financing provided...

Fragility that periodically erupts into a full-blown financial crisis appears to be an integral feature of market-based financial systems in spite of the emergence of sophisticated risk management tools and regulatory systems. If anything, the increased frequency of modern crises underscores how...