Product Description: This paper analyzes the main sources of fiscal risks, including from unexpected changes in macroeconomic variables and banking crises, which can have major consequences for countries' fiscal and public debt sustainability. It builds on an overview of existing practices in a wide range of countries to provide practical suggestions on how to promote disclosure of such risks and on risk mitigation and management...read more

Product Description: Financial globalization has increased dramatically over the past three decades, particularly for advanced economies, while emerging market and developing countries experienced more moderate increases. Divergences across countries stem from different capital control regimes, and factors such as institutional quality and domestic financial development...read more

Product Description: The frequency and virulence of recent financial crises have led to calls for reform of the current international financial architecture. In an effort to learn more about today's international financial environment, the authors turn to an earlier era of financial globalization between 1870 and 1913...read more

'Countries face a range of shocks that can contribute to higher volatility in aggregate output and, in extreme cases, to economic crises. The presence of such risks underlies a potential demand for mechanism to soften the blow from adverse economic shocks. Such a protective infrastructure is referred to in this paper as 'country insurance.' Protective measures that countries can take themselves ('self-insurance') include sound economic policies, robust financial structures, and adequate reserve coverage. Beyond self-insurance, countries have also established regional arrangements that pool risks while, at the multilateral level, the IMF plays a central role through the temporary provision of its resources when shocks create balance of payments difficulties for a member, and through the policy advice it provides under surveillance. The Occasional paper focuses on what countries can do on their own -- that is, on the role of domestic policies -- with respect to country insurance.'--Preface

Product Description: This paper builds upon previous International Monetary Fund (IMF) studies on various aspects of the exchange rate arrangements of IMF member countries consistent with the IMF's role of surveillance of members' exchange rate policies and over the international monetary system...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: The third stage of European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) was implemented in January 1999 against the specter of persistently high unemployment in many of the participating countries. While the high European unemployment has received considerable attention, this new IMF staff study analyzes an equally important issue: the extent of regional unemployment disparities in certain countries...read more