Both creditor and debtor countries ascribe an important medium-term role to the International Monetary Fund in tackling the debt problem. What possibilities are there for the IMF to exert influence and what use does it make of them?

The lending criteria applied by the IMF and the World Bank have been converging for some time. Considering also that since the floating of exchange rates in the early seventies the IMF seems to have lost in importance as a monetary institution, debate is growing on the question of whether the...