Why have China’s two policy banks with global operations, the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China, globalized their overseas development finance for coal-fired power plants, while leading development finance institutions elsewhere have pulled back from coal and China has cut back on coal-fired power expansion at home and augmented its international commitment […]
By Luma Ramos Amid the worst global recession since World War II, the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) 2021 Spring Meetings debated the importance of incorporating green policies into the economic recovery. In her opening speech, the Fund’s Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva noted that the IMF has a strategic role to play in mitigating climate change, […]
By Kevin Acker Chinese loans have become an important source of infrastructure finance for African countries over the past two decades, with Chinese financiers committing approximately $153 billion to African governments and state-owned enterprises between 2000 and 2019. The COVID-19 crisis has introduced new challenges to African borrowers and Chinese financiers, as borrowers negotiate debt […]
By Maureen Heydt The 2020s were meant to be a decade of achieving shared sustainable development and climate goals, but instead began with a global pandemic, creating the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression and pushing upwards of 124 million people pushed into extreme poverty. 2020 was also one of the hottest years on […]
The year 2021 is year two into the most important decade of the century where drastic reductions in carbon dioxide emissions and inequalities in a manner that raises standards of living is paramount to the survival of the world’s people and planet earth itself. Yet, 2020 saw the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression, and […]
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been tasked with quickly devising a climate change strategy that helps its members meet collective climate change and development goals while maintaining financial stability. A new working paper by Luma Ramos, Corinne Stephenson, Irene Monasterolo and Kevin P. Gallagher uses textual analysis algorithms to perform a baseline analysis of […]
By Rebecca Ray For many years, researchers have debated the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) use of austerity, or required fiscal budget tightening: how common it is, which borrowers receive such requirements, whether IMF practice has changed after successive financial crises, and what impacts such austerity has had. Two new working papers from the Boston University […]
By Luma Ramos The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a multilateral organization that seeks global financial stability and monetary cooperation. It has three core activities: surveillance, technical assistance, and emergency lending. Surveillance is understood as overseeing the international monetary and financial system and monitoring the economic and financial policies of its 190 member countries. The IMF’s […]
In offering loans to developing countries in exchange for policy reforms, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) typically sets the fiscal parameters within which development occurs. Among the drivers of socio-economic development, a new working paper focuses on an important, yet insufficiently understood, international-level determinant: the spread of austerity policies to the developing world by the […]
Promoting stability on a global scale is a core component of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s mandate, and the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the financial stability of nearly every country, with associated losses likely to surpass the 2008-09 Global Financial Crisis. Senior IMF officials have since called for “exceptional action” to […]