Latest posts
Saving Latin America’s Unprecedented Income Windfall
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by Gustavo Adler and Nicolás Magud (Versions in Español and Português) Commodity exporting countries in Latin America have benefited strongly from the commodity price boom that began around 2002. And the accompanying improvements...
Banking on Reform: Can Volcker, Vickers and Liikanen Resolve the Too-Important-to-Fail Conundrum?
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by José Viñals and Ceyla Pazarbasioglu The global regulatory landscape governing banks has changed from its pre-crisis status quo. In addition to the Group of Twenty advanced and emerging economies led global regulatory reforms, like Ba...
The Evolving Role of the Banking Systems in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe
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By Reza Moghadam What has been the role of foreign banks in financing growth and convergence in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe, and how is that role changing? This is discussed in the first issue of a new series of analytical work on the re...
Inclusive and Sustained Growth in Asia: The Role of Fiscal Policy
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By Anoop Singh Fiscal management has improved in Asia over the past decade. It has become more responsive to economic conditions and thereby helped stabilize growth, especially during the global financial crisis. While these are important achiev...
After a Golden Decade, Can Latin America Keep Its Luster?
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By Alejandro Werner (Version in Español) Latin America continues to be one of the fastest growing regions in the world, even though growth slowed down a bit in 2012. Many economies in the region are operating at or near potential, inflation re...
The Lessons of the North Atlantic Crisis for Economic Theory and Policy
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Guest post by: Joseph E. Stiglitz Columbia University, New York, and co-host of the Conference on Rethinking Macro Policy II: First Steps and Early Lessons In analyzing the most recent financial crisis, we can benefit somewhat from the...
Preventing The Next Catastrophe: Where Do We Stand?
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Guest post by David Romer University of California, Berkeley, and co-host of Rethinking Macro II: First Steps and Early Lessons As I listened to the presentations and discussions, I found myself thinking about the conference from two perspectives. On...
The Cat in the Tree and Further Observations: Rethinking Macroeconomic Policy
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Guest post by George A. Akerlof University of California, Berkeley Senior Resident Scholar at the IMF, and co-host of the Conference on Rethinking Macro Policy II: First Steps and Early Lessons I learned a lot from the conference , and...
Rethinking Macroeconomic Policy
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By Olivier Blanchard The IMF has just hosted a second conference devoted to rethinking macroeconomic policy in the wake of the crisis. After two days of fascinating presentations and discussions, I am certain of one thing: this is unlikely to b...
Emerging Asia: At Risk of the “Middle-Income Trap”?
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By Anoop Singh Emerging economies in Asia have weathered the global financial crisis relatively unscathed and appear to be on track for continued strong growth this year and the next. Perhaps because the region has been doing rather well, policy...
How to Sustain Recent Financial Gains: Fix Old Risks and Meet New Challenges
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By José Viñals Policymakers’ decisive actions since our last report in October have increased global financial stability by reducing acute risks. In the euro area, policymakers averted a financial cliff. In the United States...
The World’s Three-Speed Economic Recovery
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By Olivier Blanchard The main theme of our latest outlook is one that you have now heard for a few days: we have moved from a two-speed recovery to a three-speed recovery. Emerging market and developing economies are still going strong, but in advanc...
The Fiscal Milestone: Achievements, Fatigue, and Prospects
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By Carlo Cottarelli The 2008–09 global economic crisis pushed public debt ratios of advanced economies to levels never seen before during peacetime. These high debt levels expose countries to a loss of market confidence and, ulti...
How To Make A Graceful Exit: The Potential Perils of Ending Extraordinary Central Bank Policies
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By Erik Oppers This spring monetary policy is the talk of the town. It is everywhere you look, it’s unique, and you’ve never seen anything quite like it before: short-term interest rates at zero for several years running, and centra...
Scenes From A Central Bank: A Turkish Tale in Two Acts
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By Robert Tchaidze and Heiko Hesse In mid 2010 the Turkish central bank decided to introduce a policy that increased uncertainty in interest rates hoping that would stop foreign investors who were pouring money into the...
Make the Most of What You’ve Got: Small States in the Spotlight
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By Min Zhu The economies of small states have unique features. They have relatively higher costs, higher public spending needs, and more volatile economies. And their growth has not matched the improved economic performance of the rest of the world s...
Time for Change—Shifting Energy Spending in Africa
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By Antoinette M. Sayeh (Versions in 中文, Français, 日本語, Русский, and Español) For many years, countries in sub-Saharan Africa have spent large amounts on subsid...
Subsidizing Energy Consumption: Why it’s Wrong and What Can Be Done About it
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Let’s face it. Everybody loves cheap energy. And yet, energy subsidies are not a very smart thing, as argued in a new study from the IMF.
Support the People, Not Energy in the Middle East and North Africa
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By Masood Ahmed (versions in عربي, 中文, Français, 日本語, Русский, and Español) Of all the regions in the world, the Middle East and N...
An Open and Diverse Economy To Benefit All Algerians
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Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the IMF was in Algeria last week where she met with Algerians from all walks of life and discussed the country's priorities to generate more inclusive growth.
