Books reviewed: David Greenaway and C. W. Morgan (eds.), The Economics of Commodity Markets Changes in Exchange Rates in Rapidly Developing Countries by Takatoshi Ito and Anne Krueger, Managing Capital Flows and Exchange Rates in Rapidly Developing Countries Reuven Glick (ed.), Perspectives from...

This paper presents a model of the implementation of IMF programs, which is empirically tested with data from the period 1975-99. The IMF and the borrowing country are shown to have asymmetric evaluations of a program's discounted benefits, due to differences in the measurement of the benefits,...

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...

The programs of the IMF were designed to provide short-term assistance to countries with balance-of-payments disequilibria. Over time, however, the Fund instituted new facilities with longer time horizons, while many countries adopted consecutive programs. As a result, the length of time spent...

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...

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...

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...