IMF programs are designed to provide a temporary source of finance for countries with balance of payments disequilibria. Consequently, borrowing from the IMF should occur infrequently and be widely distributed among member countries. However, some countries are recurrent users of Fund resources....

Books reviewed: Sandrine Cazes and Alena Nesporova, Labour Markets in Transition: Balancing Flexibility & Security in Central and Eastern Europe T. E. Josling and T. G. Taylor (eds), Banana Wars: The Anatomy of a Trade Dispute Peter B. Kennen, Jeffrey R. Shafer, Nigel L. Wicks and Charles...

Books reviewed: INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND, Fiscal Adjustment in IMF-Supported Programs: Evaluation Report Structural Impediments to Growth in Japan, Magnus Blomstrom ed. Inflation Targeting in the World Economy, by Edwin M. Truman

One way of assessing the impact of IMF programmes is to see whether performance and policy targets are achieved. However, does a failure to hit targets mean that the programmes have been unsuccessful, or could it be that targets have been too ambitious? This paper analyses political economy...

The conventional wisdom is that crises are largely due to swings in short-term capital (mainly bank loans in the case of East Asia). Hence economies that finance their current account deficits mainly via foreign direct investment (FDI) are seen as being less susceptible to a crisis. The spate of...