The past year has been a time of unexpected challenges for the international community, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde says in her foreword to the institution's Annual Report 2015-Tackling Challenges Together, published today. Amid the continued focus on...

IMF Financial Operations 2015 provides a broad introduction to how the IMF fulfills its mission through its financial activities. It covers the financial structure and operations of the IMF and also provides background detail of the financial statements for the IMF's activities during the most...

Peru stands out among Latin American countries as an example of successful economic reforms over the past decade. This comprehensive look at Peru's economy traces that country's journey from a debt crisis in the 1980s to having buffers in place that allowed it to emerge unscathed from the global...

The IMF's work on data dissemination standards consists of two tiers: the General Data Dissemination System (GDDS), which applies to all IMF member countries, and the Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS), for those members having or seeking access to international capital markets. The GDDS...

Over the past two years, the IMF staff has been developing a new multicountry macroeconomic model called the Global Economy Model (GEM). This paper explains why such a model is needed, how GEM differs from its predecessor model, and how the new features of the model can improve the IMF’s...

In 2001- 02, Argentina experienced one of the worst economic crises in its history. A default on government debt, which occurred against the backdrop of a prolonged recession, sent the Argentine currency and economy into a tailspin. Although the economy has since recovered from the worst, the...

German banks tend to be less profitable than their foreign counterparts. This paper estimates the likely effect of the phaseout of state guarantees for public sector banks, reviews the various ways in which public policy could contribute to their restructuring, and discusses the various...

This paper discusses the significant overall progress with macro stabilization of these transition countries during 1992-1997. While average inflation declined steadily since 1992, output fell significantly for many of these countries during this period, and it was not unti 1996-97 that as a...

In just over a decade after independence, the three Baltic countries, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, have transformed themselves into fully functioning, small open-market economies that will be joining the European Union. Capital Markets and Financial Intermediation in The Baltics analyzes the...

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, there has been increased public interest in informal funds transfer (IFT) systems. This paper examines the informal hawala system, an IFT system found predominantly in the Middle East and South Asia. The paper examines the historical and...