The Bretton Woods Project review of the most important developments at the World Bank and IMF in 2013.
Macroeconomic policy
IFI governance
Background
Is the European recovery finally under way?
CEPR event at the 2013 civil society forum on whether a recovery is under way in Europe; held as a debate between Prakash Loungani of the IMF's research department and Mark Weisbrot, CEPR co-director.
IFI governance
Background
IMF consultation: CSO views on fiscal transparency policy
Minutes of an IMF consultation on fiscal transparency policy
Knowledge
Background
IMF forecasting models
Forecasting models are crucial to how the Fund performs its role as lender and global economic monitor, but the assumptions underpinning these models are frequently derided as unrealistic.
Conditionality
Analysis
IMF & Troika: a big, fat Greek divorce?
The IMF's involvement in the Troika is again being questioned due to Greek loan unsustainability and lack of consensus amongst the Troika members, while citizens continue to challenge the conditionality of the programme.
Conditionality
News
Inequality: IMF fails to listen to itself
While NGO Oxfam criticised the IMF for failing to learn lessons of the past in its approach to European austerity, IMF research on inequality produced findings opposite to IMF programme demands for borrowers.
Finance
Analysis
IMF gets emerging markets wrong, again
The Fund has had to conduct another embarrassing “U-turn” to warn of the growing risks to the stability of developing countries, while cautiously accepting the need for capital controls in principle, but not necessarily in practice.
Finance
Commentary
Why the IMF must cancel Pakistan's debt
Alongside development and economic issues, Pakistan will be tackling the debt repayments that the country is scheduled to make in the next two years and beyond thanks to a $6.64 billion IMF loan agreement. The debt burden is suffocating public spending.
IFI governance
Analysis
BRICS without mortar
On the sidelines of this week's G20 summit, BRICS nations are expected to reveal details of how their proposed $100 billion alternative to the IMF will operate.
Social services
Analysis
IMF's Greek mea culpa
In June the IMF released an ex post assessment of its 2010 lending programme to Greece which described a series of errors and found that the Fund consciously chose to break its own rules on the sustainability of the programme.
Featured briefings
16 October 2024
The Bretton Woods Observer: Autumn 2024
16 October 2024
The lost call for international financial architecture reform in the G20
At the 80th anniversary of the World Bank and IMF, global civil society must maintain pressure on the Brazilian and South African G20 presidencies to ensure the forth Financing for Development Conference in 2025 results in urgently required international financial architecture reform.
16 October 2024
Sustainable development requires sustainable finance: why local currency financing is part of the solution
Multilateral development banks can reduce their dependence on hard currency lending and make local currency financing a central element of their developmental mandate.