The gap between the average income per capita levels of the poorest and the richest nations has increased during the recent eras of globalization. This paper reviews the evidence on the determinants of the disparities in per capita incomes, which has focused on the role of institutions in...

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....

The programs of the International Monetary Fund were originally designed to provide short-term assistance to countries implementing policies to address balance of payments disequilibria. In recent decades, however, the Fund has instituted new facilities with longer time horizons, while many...

The paper investigates changes in IMF activities using the analytical framework of international public goods. Since its founding, the mix of IMF activities has changed greatly. IMF now promotes international financial stability, whose outputs are joint products with varying degrees of...

We evaluate whether financial openness leaves emerging market economies vulnerable to the adverse effects of capital reversals (sudden stops) on domestic investment. We investigate this claim in a broad sample of emerging markets during the period 1976-2002. If the banking sector does not...

We evaluate the claim that the International Monetary Fund precipitated financial crises during the 1990s by pressuring countries to liberalize their capital accounts prematurely. Using data from a panel of developing economies from the 1982-1998 period, we examine whether the changes in the...

This paper uses a fixed-effects model to analyze the effect of IMF programs on poverty with data from 82 countries during 1985 to 2000. Two indicators of poverty, infant mortality rates and the Human Development Index (HDI), are utilized, and the effects of the IMF's concessionary and...