The last 15 years have seen broad operational changes in the international system, accompanied since the beginning of the 1980s by a change in economic philosophy in a number of important industrial countries. Professor Bird examines the effects of various features of the post-Bretton Woods era...

The present arrangements for providing developing countries, and in particular the least developed countries, with international finance are inadequate in both quantitative and qualitative terms. Fundamental changes seem necessary. These changes might incorporate the establishment of a new...

The principal cause of the balance of payments deficits of the non-oil developing countries has altered since 1973: exogenous factors now play a far more important role than previously. The appropriateness of the conditions conventionally attached to IMF drawings needs to be re-examined in this...

The last 15 years have seen broad operational changes in the international system, accompanied since the beginning of the 1980s by a change in economic philosophy in a number of important industrial countries. Professor Bird examines the effects of various features of the post-Bretton Woods era...

The purpose of this paper is to explain recent changes in aid provision by examining both the economics and politics that lie behind them. Within the context of an analysis of the political economy of foreign aid, it is then possible to say whether aid fatigue is likely to persist, or whether it...

The East Asian crisis of 1997 sparked an extensive literature in an effort to explain the causes and spread of heightened foreign exchange (FX) market pressures in the region. In this paper we model FX movements and calculate spillover effects covering the extended period between 1990 and 2004....

There is a danger that reform of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will be dominated by its experience in the context of the East Asian financial crisis. Although there are clearly lessons to learn from this, it would be unwise to allow recent events to dominate the reform agenda. In many...

The report examines both statistically and analytically various aspects of commercial bank provisioning. In the first phase, the report defines the differences existing between countries and explains the implications of provisioning for banks'balance sheets. Secondly, it looks at the various...