2015 was a bold year for blogs at the IMF. Boldness grows less common in the higher ranks, according to Prussian general and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, but he couldn't be more wrong when it comes to these blogs: the list includes work by the IMF's former chief economist Olivier Blanchard and Vitor Gaspar, head of the Fiscal Affairs Department.
Our readers' interests focused on blogs about tough choices for Greece, the slump in commodity prices, the real cost of energy subsidies, how the poor and middle class contribute to growth, and new insights into emerging markets. These key themes made the top ten list, which we compiled based on readership. This year we also include a few noteworthy honorable mentions.
- Seven Questions About The Recent Oil Price Slump *
- Greece: Past Critiques and the Path Forward
- Greece: A Credible Deal Will Require Difficult Decisions By All Sides
- Act Local, Solve Global: The $5.3 Trillion Energy Subsidy Problem
- Contours of Macroeconomic Policy in the Future
- Sovereign Wealth Funds in the New Era of Oil
- Growth’s Secret Weapon: The Poor and the Middle Class
- Metals and Oil: A Tale of Two Commodities
- Ten Take Aways from the “Rethinking Macro Policy: Progress or Confusion?”
- How Much Finance Is Too Much: Stability, Growth & Emerging Markets
* published in late December 2014 but we decided to grandfather it in.
Honorable mentions go to the following blogs that attracted attention and created a debate:
The Price of Oil and the Price of Carbon
(Yet) Another Year of Subpar Growth: Latin America and the Caribbean in 2015
Canada’s Financial Sector: How to Enhance its Resilience
From the editors of iMFdirect, we wish our readers a peaceful, intriguing and insightful 2016.