We examine the cyclical properties of development aid using bilateral data for 22 donors and over 100 recipients during 1970?2005. We find that bilateral aid flows are on average procyclical with respect to business cycles in donor and recipient countries. However, they become countercyclical...

Two economists designed the main features of the charter of the IMF during World War II: John Maynard Keynes and Harry Dexter White. Several of those features are attributable primarily to White, including the adoption of fixed but adjustable exchange rates, the funding of operations with...

Drawing on recent research, this study elaborates on the role of the IMF in support of its lowincome members, pointing to the global character of the institution and to its superior ability-given its multilateral nature-to serve as a financial institution, an information provider, and a...

The view that the IMF’s financial support gives rise to moral hazard has become increasingly prominent in policy discussions, particularly following the 1995 Mexican crisis. This paper seeks to clarify a number of conceptual issues and bring some basic empirical evidence to bear on this...

Designing appropriate governance structures for an international financial institution such as the IMF is difficult, because steps to enhance the legitimacy of such an institution through constraints on its decision-making process may affect its operational efficiency. Potential trade-offs...

This paper proposes a framework to check for consistency between the IMF's standard country surveillance tool, namely medium-term projections of the macroeconomic framework (including the real, fiscal, external, and monetary sectors), and the financial sector. Consistency here entails that the...

We survey quantitative fiscal conditionality in selected sub-Saharan African PRGFsupported programs, and assess the conditionality against some possible benchmarks and best practices. While noting many caveats, the paper suggests some possible scope for further attuning of this conditionality to...

The aim of this paper is to take a closer look at IMF conditionality in the banking sector. Our analysis shows that while such conditionality became more stringent following the Asian crisis, compliance has remained broadly unchanged, comparing unfavorably with other structural reforms. The...

Harry Dexter White, the principal architect of the international financial system established at the end of the Second World War, was arguably the most important U. S. government economist of the 20th century. His reputation, however, has suffered because of allegations that he spied for the...