IMF economists work closely with member countries on a variety of issues. Their unique perspective on country experiences and best practices on global macroeconomic issues are often shared in the form of books on diverse topics such as cross-country comparisons, capacity building, macroeconomic policy, financial integration, and globalization.
In its more than 65 years of existence, the International Monetary Fund has evolved from a small, obscure international agency, with new and uncertain responsibilities, into a powerful institution that today has assumed center stage in the international monetary system. It is a remarkable story of how an institution has developed and adapted itself to an evolving world and a changing membership in ways that perhaps no other international agency has been forced or able to do. The third edition of the Historical Dictionary of the International Monetary Fund provides a comprehensive overview of the fund, including a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, a bibliography, and over 300 cross-referenced dictionary entries on the organizations, significant leaders, founders, and members. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the International Monetary Fund.
IMF economists work closely with member countries on a variety of issues. Their unique perspective on country experiences and best practices on global macroeconomic issues are often shared in the form of books on diverse topics such as cross-country comparisons, capacity building, macroeconomic policy, financial integration, and globalization.
Listen to a short interview with Rawi AbdelalHost: Chris Gondek | Producer: Heron & Crane The rise of global financial markets in the last decades of the twentieth century was premised on one fundamental idea: that capital ought to flow across country borders with minimal restriction and regulation. Freedom for capital movements became the new orthodoxy. In an intellectual, legal, and political history of financial globalization, Rawi Abdelal shows that this was not always the case. Transactions routinely executed by bankers, managers, and investors during the 1990s--trading foreign stocks and bonds, borrowing in foreign currencies--had been illegal in many countries only decades, and sometimes just a year or two, earlier. How and why did the world shift from an orthodoxy of free capital movements in 1914 to an orthodoxy of capital controls in 1944 and then back again by 1994? How have such standards of appropriate behavior been codified and transmitted internationally? Contrary to conventional accounts, Abdelal argues that neither the U.S. Treasury nor Wall Street bankers have preferred or promoted multilateral, liberal rules for global finance. Instead, European policy makers conceived and promoted the liberal rules that compose the international financial architecture. Whereas U.S. policy makers have tended to embrace unilateral, ad hoc globalization, French and European policy makers have promoted a rule-based, "managed" globalization. This contest over the character of globalization continues today.
IMF conditionality has been severely criticised by developing countries, who accuse the Fund of unjustly provoking political turmoil and causing poverty. This refers to the policies that a member country is required to follow in order to be able to use the Fund's resources. Conditionality is legally based on the requirement to adopt `adequate safeguards' for the use of resources as stipulated by the IMF's Articles of Agreement. This work focuses on legal implications and policy aspects and, more specifically, on the question of how far-reaching the requirement of `adequate safeguards' may be. Furthermore, the author demonstrates that conditionality is also affected by cooperative arrangements with other institutions, such as the World Bank and United Nations. A major conclusion is that there should be improvements in cooperation and in the monitoring of the application of Fund law on conditionality. Scholars and students who take a deep interest in international economic relations will find this book a unique opportunity to study the legal framework of conditionality. Government officials preparing for negotiations with the Fund will also benefit from reading this work.
