We present a framework that clarifies the financial role of the IMF, the rationale for conditionality, and the conditions under which IMF-induced moral hazard can arise. In the model, traditional conditionality commits country authorities to undertake crisis resolution efforts, facilitating the...

The debate on government debt in the context of possible reforms of the international financial architecture has thus far focused on crisis resolution. This paper seeks to broaden this debate. It asks how government debt could be structured to pursue other objectives, including crisis...

We present a stylized framework which encompasses a variety of "balance sheet approaches" to currency crises that have been suggested in the literature, and analyze their policy implications. The common theme is that currency and maturity mismatches in private sector balance sheets constrain the...

The large international bailouts of the 1990s have been criticized for generating moral hazard at the expense of the global taxpayer. We argue that this criticism is misleading because international bailouts create no, or very few, costs to the international community. Instead, the problem is to...

We present a stylized framework which encompasses a variety of balance sheet approaches to currency crises that have been suggested in the literature, and analyze their policy implications. The common theme is that currency and maturity mismatches in private sector balance sheets constrain the...

Using a simple model of international lending, we show that as long as the IMF lends at an actuarially fair interest rate and debtor governments maximize the welfare of their taxpayers, any changes in policy effort, capital flows, or borrowing costs in response to IMF crisis lending are...