Program Design in Currency Unions

Program Design in Currency Unions
Author: International Monetary Fund. Strategy, Policy, & Review Department
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 71
Release: 2018-03-16
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1498307280

"Despite a long history of program engagement, the Fund has not developed guidance on program design in members of currency unions. The Fund has engaged with members of the four currency unions—the Central African Economic and Monetary Community, the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union, the European Monetary Union, and the West African Economic and Monetary Union—under Fund-supported programs. In some cases, union-wide institutions supported their members in undertaking adjustment under Fund-supported programs. As such, several programs incorporated—on an ad hoc basis—critical policy actions that union members had delegated. Providing general guidance on program design for members in a currency union context would fill a gap in Fund policy and help ensure consistent, transparent, and evenhanded treatment across Fund-supported programs. This paper considers two options on when and how the Fund should seek policy assurances from union-level institutions in programs of currency union members. Option 1 would involve amending the Conditionality Guidelines, which would allow the use of standard conditionality tools with respect to actions by union-level institutions. Option 2—which staff prefers—proposes formalizing current practices and providing general guidance regarding principles and modalities on policy assurances from union-level institutions in support of members’ adjustment programs. Neither option would infringe upon the independence (or legally-provided autonomy) of union-level institutions, since the institutions would decide what measures or policy actions to take—just as any independent central bank or monetary authority does, for example, in non-CU members."

2018 Review of Program Design and Conditionality

2018 Review of Program Design and Conditionality
Author: International Monetary Fund. Strategy, Policy, & Review Department
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 172
Release: 2019-05-20
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1498315712

The 2018 Review of Program Design and Conditionality is the first comprehensive stocktaking of Fund lending operations since the global financial crisis. The review assesses program performance between September 2011 and end-2017. Programs during this period were defined by the protracted structural challenges faced by members and hampered by the persistently weak global environment.

Currency Unions

Currency Unions
Author: Alberto Alesina
Publisher: Hoover Institution Press
Total Pages: 99
Release: 2013-11-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0817928464

Currency Unions reviews the traditional case for flexible exchange rates and "countercyclical"—that is, expansionary during recessions and contractionary in booms—monetary policy, and shows how flexible exchange rate regimes can better insulate the economy from such real disturbances as terms-of-trade shocks. The book also looks at the pitfalls of flexible exchange rates—and why fixed rates, particularly full dollarization—might be a more sensible choice for some emerging-market countries. The contributors also detail the factors that determine the optimal sizes of currency unions, explain how currency union greatly expands the volume of international trade among its members, and examine the recent implementation of dollarization in Ecuador.

Operational Guidance Note On Program Design and Conditionality

Operational Guidance Note On Program Design and Conditionality
Author: International Monetary Fund. Strategy, Policy, & Review Department
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 179
Release: 2024-01-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

This note aims to provide guidance on the key principles and considerations underlying the design of Fund-supported programs. The note expands on the previous operational guidance notes on conditionality published over 2003-2014, incorporating lessons from the 2018-19 Review of Conditionality, and other recent key policy developments including the recommendation of the Management’s Implementation Plan in response to Independent Evaluation Office (IEO)’s report on growth and adjustment in IMF-supported programs. The note in particular highlights operational advice to (i) improve the realism of macroeconomic forecast in programs and fostering a more systematic analysis of contingency plans and risks; (ii) improve the focus, depth, implementation, and tailoring of structural conditions (SCs), with due consideration of growth effects; and (iii) help strengthen the ownership of country authorities. Designed as a comprehensive reference and primer on program design and conditionality in an accessible and transparent manner, the note refers in summary to a broad range of economic and policy considerations over the lifecycle of Fund-supported programs. As with all guidance notes, the relevant IMF Executive Board Decisions remain the primary legal authority on matters covered in this note.

The European Union: A Very Short Introduction

The European Union: A Very Short Introduction
Author: John Pinder
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2013-07-25
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0199681694

John Pinder and Simon Usherwood explain the EU in plain readable English. They show how and why it has developed, how the institutions work, and what it does - from the single market to the euro, and from agriculture to the environment.

EU Law of Economic & Monetary Union

EU Law of Economic & Monetary Union
Author: Fabian Amtenbrink
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 1649
Release: 2020-05-21
Genre: Law
ISBN: 019251248X

Presenting a sweeping analysis of the legal foundations, institutions, and substantive legal issues in EU monetary integration, The EU Law of Economic and Monetary Union serves as an authoritative reference on the legal framework of European economic and monetary union. The book opens by setting out the broader contexts for the European project - historical, economic, political, and regarding the international framework. It goes on to examine the constitutional architecture of EMU; the main institutions and their legal powers; the core legal provisions of monetary and economic union; and the relationship of EMU with EU financial market and banking regulation. The concluding section analyses the current EMU crisis and the main avenues of future reform.

Crisis Program Review

Crisis Program Review
Author: International Monetary Fund
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 74
Release: 2015-09-11
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1498344038

This paper provides an updated review of Fund-supported programs undertaken during the global financial crisis. It follows a series of previous reviews during 2009–12 that assessed program design and outcomes during the surge in Fund supported programs since 2008. The review covers experience during 2008–15 for 32 arrangements financed from the Fund's general resources account (GRA). It covers 27 countries for which arrangements were approved during September 2008–June 2013, with two years or more of program performance.

Inequality and Fiscal Policy

Inequality and Fiscal Policy
Author: Mr.Benedict J. Clements
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 450
Release: 2015-09-21
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1513567756

The sizeable increase in income inequality experienced in advanced economies and many parts of the world since the 1990s and the severe consequences of the global economic and financial crisis have brought distributional issues to the top of the policy agenda. The challenge for many governments is to address concerns over rising inequality while simultaneously promoting economic efficiency and more robust economic growth. The book delves into this discussion by analyzing fiscal policy and its link with inequality. Fiscal policy is the government’s most powerful tool for addressing inequality. It affects households ‘consumption directly (through taxes and transfers) and indirectly (via incentives for work and production and the provision of public goods and individual services such as education and health). An important message of the book is that growth and equity are not necessarily at odds; with the appropriate mix of policy instruments and careful policy design, countries can in many cases achieve better distributional outcomes and improve economic efficiency. Country studies (on the Netherlands, China, India, Republic of Congo, and Brazil) demonstrate the diversity of challenges across countries and their differing capacity to use fiscal policy for redistribution. The analysis presented in the book builds on and extends work done at the IMF, and also includes contributions from leading academics.

The United States as a Monetary Union

The United States as a Monetary Union
Author: Great Britain. Treasury
Publisher:
Total Pages: 108
Release: 2003
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

This publication is part of a set of 18 documents which have been prepared by H.M. Treasury to inform the assessment of the Government's five economic tests for Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) entry into the euro area. This study considers the example of US monetary union, a union which covers a geographical area significantly larger than western Europe. As the world's largest economy, it provides a working example of how different regions, disparate in terms of their geography, climate, industry and heritage, develop within a monetary union.

Selected Decisions and Selected Documents of the International Monetary Fund, Forty First Issue Supplement

Selected Decisions and Selected Documents of the International Monetary Fund, Forty First Issue Supplement
Author: International Monetary Fund. Legal Dept.
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 907
Release: 2021-02-08
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1513557521

This volume is the Forty-First Issue of Selected Decisions and Selected Documents of the IMF. It includes decisions, interpretations, and resolutions of the Executive Board and the Board of Governors of the IMF, as well as selected documents, to which frequent reference is made in the current activities of the IMF. In addition, it includes certain documents relating to the IMF, the United Nations, and other international organizations. As with other recent issues, the number of decisions in force continues to increase, with the decision format tending to be longer given the use of summings up in lieu of formal decisions. Accordingly, it has become necessary to delete certain decisions that were included in earlier issues, that is, those that only completed or called for reviews of decisions, those that lapsed, and those that were superseded by more recent decisions. Wherever reference is made in these decisions and documents to a provision of the IMF’s Articles of Agreement or Rules and Regulations that has subsequently been renumbered by, or because of, the Second Amendment of the Fund’s Articles of Agreement (effective April 1, 1978), the corresponding provision currently in effect is cited in a footnote.