Latin American countries have been in the eye of economic and financial storms several times in recent years. Advice from the International Monetary Fund has consistently highlighted the need for sound fiscal policies and lower debt levels. But is public debt relevant? Following a brief...

It has frequently been assumed that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) plays an important catalysing role in mobilizing international capital for developing countries and countries in transition. The Fund has conventionally been depicted as a "gatekeeper" that unlocks financial flows from...

The purpose of this paper is to explain recent changes in aid provision by examining both the economics and politics that lie behind them. Within the context of an analysis of the political economy of foreign aid, it is then possible to say whether aid fatigue is likely to persist, or whether it...

Over the course of the 1990s economists appeared to favour exchange rate regimes that were either completely flexible or rigidly fixed through mechanisms such as currency boards. According to this "bipolar" view of exchange rates, intermediate regimes were deemed to be ineffective and prone to...

At the beginning of the 1990s it appeared that there was considerable agreement about the kind of economic policies that countries turning to the IMF and the World Bank should pursue. These included macroeconomic stabilisation, microeconomic liberalisation and openness, and were summarised by...

The US balance of payments current account deficit is in excess of 5 per cent of GDP. Is this sustainable? A loss of confidence in the dollar could lead to foreign investors selling dollars and to a sharp dollar devaluation. In principle, there could be a dollar crisis. But how likely is it?...

In the aftermath of the 1997/1998 crisis, Asian economies have built up large holdings of international reserves. Although initially encouraged to do so by the IMF, more recently they have been criticised for maintaining undervalued currencies, running large current account balance of payments...

The East Asian financial crisis has spawned a number of proposals for institutional reform. Some envisage reforming existing institutions, particularly the International Monetary Fund (IMF), while others suggest that new institutions are needed. Amongst them is the idea of establishing an Asian...

The IMF advertises itself as playing a catalytic role, whereby its lending programmes induce other providers of finance to invest or lend as well. The theoretical foundations of this claim are reviewed and found to be questionable. The empirical evidence also appears to contradict the notion of...

In the aftermath of the East Asian financial crisis there has been much discussion of exchange rate policy in developing countries. Some observers have suggested that they should opt either for flexible exchange rates or for firmly fixed rates. Adopting the US dollar as legal tender and...