Policy Papers
2011
October 27, 2011
Managing Director's Statement on Strengthening Surveillance - 2011 Triennial Surveillance Review
Description: After inputs from country authorities, outside experts, and staff; after extensive deliberations at the Executive Board; after further guidance from ministers and governors at the IMFC meetings—after all that, we need to move from diagnosis to action. The goal of making surveillance as interconnected as the world economy remains an inherently long-term endeavor. Nevertheless, building on recent progress, we can do better even in the near term. I want to take this opportunity to put forward some specific measures, based on Executive Directors’ many thoughtful comments and suggestions (Table 1).
October 24, 2011
The Multilateral Aspects of Policies Affecting Capital Flows - Background Paper
Description:
The case studies document the regulatory and supervisory dimension of episodes during the recent crisis involving capital flows that generated systemic stress. Source country regulation and supervision is the main focus, although recipient country policies also were important in some cases and are thus covered as well.
Three of the case studies are motivated by systemic stress that arose from flows between advanced economies. Strong demand by foreign investors for U.S. financial products helped drive gross flows between the United States and other countries, especially Europe, and induced the U.S. financial sector to develop products that transformed their risky assets into highly-rated securities. In turn, large European banks came to depend on short-term liquidity provided from the U.S. These two-way capital flows created a complex web among markets and institutions, some regulated and some not. Against this background, case studies were prepared for European banks and U.S. money market mutual funds (MMMFs) and for German banks and U.S. mortgage-backed securities (MBSs). Another important case is that of the near failure of the American International Group (AIG), which turned out to have complex and systemically cross-border linkages with other global institutions and markets.
October 19, 2011
Report of the Task Force on the Fund's Technical Assistance Strategy
Description: Fund technical assistance (TA) has undergone major changes during the last few years. On the demand side, there is increased interest in a longer-term, implementation-oriented TA, “second generation” reforms, and in new topics. On the supply side, TA is increasingly financed by donors, and increasingly delivered through experts located in the field. These and other developments call for reassessing the Fund’s TA strategy.
October 13, 2011
The Multilateral Aspects of Policies Affecting Capital Flows
Description:
The crisis is prompting a reconsideration of capital flows and the policies that affect them. A breakdown in the domestic stability of a large country can spill over into stress in other countries and even to the global system as a whole. The activities of global institutions and markets—some regulated and some not—can bear on the riskiness of flows. Thus, national policies affecting capital flows can transmit multilaterally. This transmission has not been fully appreciated by national policymakers. Further, they may not have incentives to take full account of the cross-border effects of their policies. Looking ahead, the upward trend in the volume of capital flows can be expected to continue, making it ever more important to address the associated cross-border risks.
This paper aims to draw greater attention to the multilateral aspects of policies affecting capital flows. Previous work by the Fund has focused on the policies of recipient countries, mainly emerging market economies (EMEs), and addressed the circumstances in which capital flow management measures (CFMs) would be appropriate. This paper provides a complementary assessment of regulatory and supervisory policies of advanced economies, as well as large advanced economy monetary policy. Moreover, it addresses the multilateral transmission of CFMs.
October 5, 2011
Guidance Note on the New Design for Article IV Consultation Reports
Description: Earlier in 2011, Management approved a new design covering both the design and structure for stand-alone Article IV staff reports. All stand-alone Article IV reports issued to the Board after September 1 are being prepared in the new format. It is anticipated that this new design will be rolled out gradually over the course of the next fiscal year for other country reports and policy documents.
September 24, 2011
Managing Director's Action Plan to the International Monetary and Financial Committee
Description: The risks ahead and the role of the Fund. Global growth is flagging. In the advanced country core of the international monetary system, fiscal and financial vulnerabilities and uncertain growth prospects are feeding on each other, posing instability risks to a world with diminished policy buffers. The Fund’s policy advice on tackling this situation is outlined in the Consolidated Multilateral Surveillance report. While responsibility of implementing the right policies lies with members, the Fund has a responsibility to help--by working out specifics, and finding and coordinating global solutions to immediate threats to global stability. At the same time, we cannot lose sight of the longer-term structural issues in the international monetary system, where at least visible progress if not closure is needed.
September 24, 2011
Managing Director's Consolidated Multilateral Surveillance Report to the International Monetary and Financial Committee
Description: The global economy has entered a dangerous phase. Policy makers must act boldly to finish the job they began in 2009, lest the gains from the recovery since then be lost. Collective action can put the global economy on a path to strong, sustainable, and balanced growth.
September 23, 2011
Criteria for Broadening the SDR Currency Basket
Description: The paper explores the pros and cons of maintaining the current “freely usable currency” criterion, and clarifies indicators for assessing it. The freely usable concept and its two key elements—currencies should be "widely used" and "widely traded"—are set out in the Articles and serve important operational purposes. A formal requirement for a currency to be freely usable was adopted for SDR valuation only in 2000, although considerations relating to this concept had been taken into account earlier. Indicators for assessing freely usable currencies were first discussed in 1977, and are updated to reflect subsequent developments in financial markets and data availability. The paper suggests as indicators for "wide use" the currency composition of foreign exchange reserves, international debt securities, and international bank liabilities; and for "wide trading" it proposes foreign exchange spot market turnover.
September 21, 2011
Managing Global Growth Risks and Commodity Price Shocks - Vulnerabilities and Policy Challenges for Low-Income Countries
Description:
As part of its work to help low-income countries (LICs) manage volatility, the IMF has recently developed an analytical framework to assess vulnerabilities and emerging risks that arise from changes in the external environment (see IMF, 2011a). This report draws on the results of the first Vulnerability Exercise for LICs (VE-LIC) conducted by IMF staff using this new framework.
The report focuses on the risks of a downturn in global growth and of further global commodity price shocks, and discusses related policy challenges. The report is organized as follows: Chapter I reviews recent macroeconomic developments, including the spike in global commodity prices earlier this year. Chapter II assesses current risks and vulnerabilities, including how a sharp downturn in global growth and further commodity price shocks would affect LICs. Chapter III discusses policy challenges in the face of these risks and vulnerabilities.
September 16, 2011
Safeguards Assessments - 2011 Update
Description: Under the Fund’s safeguards policy introduced in 2000, assessments of central banks are carried out for countries seeking financing from the IMF. They are part of the Fund’s approach to prudent lending and complement the Fund’s other safeguards such as program design, conditionality, and access limits, to name a few. The assessments aim to provide reasonable assurance that governance and controls can protect Fund resources from misuse and guard against misreporting of monetary data used for program monitoring purposes.