This paper shows that the U.S.'s biggest trading partners in the Americas will likely see a significant loss in exports and GDP as the U.S. economy slows. Countries less reliant on the U.S. market will not be as negatively impacted. The paper makes two sets of projections for the decline in...

This report looks at Argentina’s current debt, fiscal, and overall economic situation to see if there is justification for concerns that Argentina is facing serious economic problems that could lead to a default on its sovereign debt. The Argentine economy has grown more than 60 percent since...

This paper presents an update of CEPR’s December 2007 overview of Haiti’s outstanding foreign debt, and how much of this debt is scheduled to be canceled under Haiti’s participation in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank’s Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC)...

This paper looks at Venezuela’s export revenue, imports, and trade and current account balances under a range of oil price outcomes for the next two years. It finds that Venezuela would run large current account surpluses for prices between $60-90 per barrel, and would even run a small surplus...

This issue brief examines the International Monetary Fund's (IMF's) economic growth projections for Latin America and the Caribbean through 2014. It finds that for some countries – most notably Venezuela and Argentina – the IMF’s projections inexplicably portend a prolonged negative impact...

This paper shows that, in spite of a reasonably sized fiscal stimulus package, Costa Rica’s economy continues on a downward path, partly because fiscal policy is being offset by a tightening of monetary policy. The paper notes that the International Monetary Fund has insisted that Costa...

his issue brief looks at the likely costs to the U.S. Treasury from a $108 billion increase in the U.S. contribution to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The White House's Office of Management and Budget originally proposed the $108 billion be scored at zero in the budget, and there are...

This paper briefly reviews the IMF’s current practices and policy-making in the context of a proposed quadrupling of IMF resources to $1 trillion dollars, and a consequent increase in the Fund’s influence over economic policy-making in developing countries. It finds that the IMF is still...

Debates over economic policy tend to be enormously confused. It is often the case that even high-level officials and well-known economists seem ignorant of basic accounting identities. This leads them to make claims that literally do not add up. This seems to be especially common in the case of...

Private equity, hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds and other private pools of capital form part of the growing shadow banking system in the United States; these new financial intermediaries provide an alternative investment mechanism to the traditional banking system. Private equity and hedge...