Word: imf
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...been six years since the east asian crisis began - a sudden collapse of the currencies followed by recession and depression. From East Asia, it spread around the world until some feared the global economy itself might be approaching collapse. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) came charging to the rescue, but its programs did little to fix the problem. In fact, critics such as myself argued that IMF policies - particularly its insistence on premature "liberalization," or forcing recipient nations to open up their financial markets to often volatile short-term capital flows - had helped bring on the contagion, and that...
...alternative is needed. Since the '80s, alternatives have been proposed - allowing nations to declare bankruptcy and standstills in the same way that individual debtors who cannot meet their obligations are permitted to have a fresh start, or at least reschedule payments. But these were long rejected by the IMF, which felt they were an abrogation of the sanctity of the debt contract. In November 2001, with the impending failure in Argentina, the IMF recognized the need for a systematic procedure for debt restructurings. Unfortunately, U.S. opposition and some major political mismanagement by the IMF put this reform...
...been widely accepted, even by the developed countries holding the IOUs, that some form of debt forgiveness was needed for highly indebted poor countries. Debt overhang was stifling their growth; and without growth, they would not in any case be able to repay what they owed. In 1996, the IMF and World Bank, together with the G-7, initiated a program of debt forgiveness, but in order to have their debts forgiven, countries had to meet a series of hurdles set by the IMF...
...help means eating crow. But besides the need for military assistance, an even more pressing impetus for compromise with international allies may be the financial burden of managing postwar Iraq. It can't have pleased the Bush administration that in a week when the Washington was scolded by the IMF for projecting for next year a record deficit of $480 billion, Ambassador Bremer told the Washington Post that Iraq would next year need "several tens of billions of dollar" in foreign aid. White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan retorted that the Bush administration would ask for more money from Congress...
Rogoff spent two years at the IMF on a leave of absence from the Harvard economics department, which he joined in 1999. Prior to that, Rogoff was the Robertson professor of international affairs at Princeton University. He has also served on the staff at the IMF and the Federal Reserve Board and as a visiting scholar at the World Bank...