This comment discusses the issues regarding the scale of conditional finance offered by the International Monetary Fund in recent rescue packages, and the related issues regarding a true lender of last resort. It reviews critiques of the Fund?s performance in recent emerging-market crises,...

Current research discusses various general frameworks for installing an international lender of last resort (ILOLR). However, it remains unclear how the ILOLR should actually operate. This paper discusses six different options of construction of an ILOLR who supports central banks in the case of...

This study addresses the following puzzle: why did states in the largest emerging economies (EMEs) in Latin America and Asia not use formal institutions to cope with the 2008 crisis? During the 1990s, these economies used and established regional and multilateral monetary arrangements, but in...

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has dual institutional roles: a steward of international financial stability and a global banker safeguarding the resources of its sovereign shareholders. But, how does the IMF behave when its balance sheet becomes exposed to higher-than-usual credit risk,...

This paper provides an introduction to the special issue on international lending of last resort. Starting from debates about rescue operations and unconventional policies of major central banks in the contexts of the Global Financial Crisis and the European Debt Crisis, it draws attention to...

The large international bailouts of the 1990s have been criticized for differentreasons, in particular for generating moral hazard at the expense of theglobal taxpayer. We argue in this paper that some of these concerns areexaggerated or misleading because international bailouts have no or...

The large international bailouts of the 1990s have been criticized for different reasons, in particular for generating moral hazard at the expense of the global taxpayer. We argue in this paper that some of these concerns are exaggerated or misleading because international bailouts have no or...