Policy Papers
2015
August 25, 2015
Key Trends in Implementing the Fund's Transparency Policy
Description: At the time of the 2005 Review of the Fund’s Transparency Policy, the Executive Board requested regular updates on trends in implementing the transparency policy. The tables in this report provide an overview of recent developments, reflecting information on documents considered by the Board in 2014 and updating the previous annual report on Key Trends. Deeper analysis of these trends is undertaken in the context of periodic reviews of the Fund’s Transparency Policy.
August 5, 2015
FY2015 Administrative and Capital Expenses and Output Cost Estimates
Description:
The administrative expenditure outturn for FY2015 reflects continued budget discipline, as new demands and initiatives were accommodated through reprioritization and better use of existing resources within an unchanged envelope. The overall budget utilization rate of 98 percent was achieved through more efficient personnel management practices and effective reallocation of resources from underutilized areas to areas of emerging pressure.
In terms of outputs, the Fund continued its focus on addressing global policy challenges and reducing vulnerabilities. Resources allocated to multilateral surveillance, oversight of the global systems and capacity development increased while bilateral surveillance and lending declined moderately, in line with easing of crisis-related work. Spending by country reflects a continued shift towards a more risk-based approach, consistent with the established priorities.
Capital expenditures mainly reflected the major renovation of the HQ1 building and improvements in information technology infrastructure and security to better support the staff’s work and protect information assets.
August 4, 2015
SDR Currency Basket—Proposed Extension of the Valuation of the SDR
Description: This paper proposes an extension of the current SDR valuation basket for a period of nine months to September 30, 2016. This extension would respond to feedback from SDR users on the desirability of avoiding changes in the basket at the end of the calendar year and facilitate the continued smooth functioning of SDR-related operations. As discussed at the informal Board meeting on July 29, this proposal does not in any way prejudge the outcome of the Review of the Method of Valuation of the SDR.
July 16, 2015
Balance Sheet Analysis in Fund Surveillance - Reference Note
Description:
This note serves as a reference for balance sheet analysis, which should be read in conjunction with the IMF board paper on Balance Sheet Analysis in Fund Surveillance.
It provides a: compendium of good examples of balance sheet analysis from both bilateral and multilateral surveillance, covering a variety of topics; full listing of available balance sheet related macro datasets, including their relevance for surveillance, remaining limitations, and remedial measures being undertaken; summary of data availability for each Fund member; compilation of all the tools for balance sheet analysis developed by the Fund over the last decade; and toolkit featuring some new empirical applications that could help deepen balance sheet analysis in surveillance. These include illustrations of how to construct and use BSA matrices, general equilibrium and reduced form approaches, as well as tools to analyze sectoral vulnerabilities using micro data.
July 16, 2015
Review of the Method of Valuation of the SDR - Initial Considerations
Description:
This paper lays out initial considerations for the quinquennial review of the method of valuation of the Special Drawing Right (SDR) currency basket. As in previous reviews, a key objective is to enhance the attractiveness of the SDR as an international reserve asset. In that context, the review will assess the currencies for SDR basket inclusion, currency weights, and the SDR interest rate basket.
The paper takes as a starting point the conclusions of the last review in 2010 and the subsequent Board discussion of currency selection criteria in 2011. At the time of the last review, China met the gateway export criterion but the renminbi (RMB) was not included in the SDR basket as it was not judged to be freely usable, the second currency selection criterion. In light of the Board’s broad support in 2011 for the existing legal framework, and since China continues to meet the export criterion, this paper discusses building blocks relevant for a future determination on whether to include the RMB in the basket under the existing criteria.
June 29, 2015
2015 External Sector Report - Individual Economy Assessments
Description:
The external sector assessments use a wide range of methods, including the External Balance Assessment (EBA) developed by the IMF’s Research Department to estimate desired current account balances and real exchange rates (see Annex I of the 2015 External Sector Report, also IMF Working Paper WP/13/272 for a complete description of the EBA methodology). In all cases, the overall assessment is based on the judgment of IMF staff drawing on the inputs provided by these model estimates and other analysis and the estimates are subject to uncertainty.
The assessments discuss a broad range of external indicators: the current account, the real effective exchange rate, capital and financial accounts flows and measures, FX intervention and reserves and the foreign asset or liability position. The individual economy assessments are discussed with the respective authorities as a part of bilateral surveillance.
June 29, 2015
2015 External Sector Report
Description:
After narrowing modestly in 2013, the global scale of current account imbalances, and of excess imbalances, held steady in 2014. Over the last several years, while the country composition of imbalances has rotated somewhat, overall there has been little progress on reducing excess imbalances. Excess deficits narrowed in some cases, but widened in others; progress on reducing excess surpluses has stalled.
An unfinished policy agenda to reduce excess imbalances remains. Efforts by both surplus and deficit economies would be mutually reinforcing and support growth.
Several significant recent developments will affect external positions in 2015: sharply lower oil prices, cyclical divergence and different monetary policies among the major economies, and related currency movements. Those developments do not overturn the previous pattern of excess imbalances and associated policy agenda, but they will have significant effects and raise new issues.
June 24, 2015
Eligibility to Use the Fund's Facilities for Concessional Financing, 2015
Description:
The review of PRGT eligibility continues to be guided by the principles of maintaining a transparent, rules-based, and parsimonious framework—ensuring uniformity of treatment across members in similar situations while taking appropriate account of country-specific circumstances. The graduation policy seeks to maintain broad alignment with the World Bank’s IDA graduation practices, while also remaining consistent with the principle of ensuring the self-sustainability of the PRGT’s lending capacity over time.
The paper concludes that the existing framework remains broadly appropriate, but could be enhanced in a few areas, including: Making use of additional data sources, namely the IMF BEL database, in assessing that a country has durable and substantial market access, supplementing the current reliance on the World Bank’s IDS database that is produced with a significant lag; Sharpening the specification of circumstances under which the presence of serious short-term vulnerabilities would justify non-graduation of a country that meets the income graduation criterion. This would entail limiting the application of the serious short-term vulnerabilities criterion for countries that exceed the applicable income graduation threshold by 50 percent or more.
June 24, 2015
Proposed Amendments to the Special Data Dissemination Standard Plus and the Annex on the General Data Dissemination System
Description: The Special Data Dissemination Standard Plus (SDDS Plus) was established in October 2012 to reinforce and supplement the Fund’s Data Standards Initiatives and assist Fund members who decide to adhere to the SDDS Plus with regard to the publication of comprehensive, timely, accessible, and reliable economic and financial statistical data in a world of continuing economic and financial integration. The SDDS Plus also requires adherents to disseminate metadata to promote public knowledge and understanding of their compilation practices with respect to the required data categories. During the Ninth Review of the Fund’s data Standards Initiatives in May 2015 executive directors supported changing the transition period to meet all SDDS Plus requirements to five years after the adherence date. On July 1, 2015, the Executive Board approved the proposed change. The existing rules governing the SDDS Plus are superseded by the new SDDS Plus legal text.
June 19, 2015
Quota Formula - Data Update
Description:
The IMF staff has updated individual member country data for the variables used in the quota formula for the period 2001-13.
The staff paper also presents updated calculated quota shares based on the current quota formula. The current quota formula includes a GDP variable, which is a blend of GDP at market rates and GDP at purchasing power parity (PPP), openness, variability, and international reserves. The International Monetary and Financial Committee has called for agreement on a new quota formula as part of the 15th General Review of Quotas. The paper presents a limited set of illustrative simulations of possible reforms of the quota formula using the updated quota data. These simulations are purely illustrative and do not represent proposals.
The new data tables that can be downloaded via the below link include also the comparable value of each variable for the previous quota dataset, which was based on data covering the period 2000-2012. The information is presented in millions of SDRs (Table A1) and in percent of their respective global totals (Tables A2 and A3). A table showing calculated quota shares based on the current quota formula is also included (Table A4).
Data sources and a description of the quota variables are discussed in Quota Formula – Data Update - Statistical Appendix; IMF Policy Paper; July 2015.
Download Quota Data: Updated IMF Quota Formula Variables - July 2015