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This paper aims to provide new insights regarding the impact of International Monetary Fund (IMF) programs on income inequality.

The paper uses a novel methodological approach proposed by Acemoglu et al. (2019), using (1) the regression adjustment, (2) the inverse probability weighting and (3) the doubly robust estimator, which combines (1) and (2), and a sample of annual data for 135 developing countries over the time period 1970 to 2015.

The findings show that IMF programs are associated with greater income inequality for up to five years. By differentiating the effect of IMF programs, the authors find that only IMF non-concessional programs have a significant detrimental effect on income inequality, while IMF concessional programs do not have a consistent effect on income inequality. In addition, the authors find that only IMF programs with a higher number of conditions have a detrimental and statistically significant effect on income inequality, compared to IMF programs with a smaller number of conditions, where their effect on income inequality is found to be insignificant.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the analysis developed in this paper contributes to the existing literature by applying the most methodologically sound identification strategy, which does not rely on the linearity assumption, the selection of instruments or matching variables and additionally takes into account the selection bias related to IMF program participation.

During the banking crisis of October 2008, Iceland became the first developed country in decades to seek the assistance of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Iceland’s IMF programme provided a measure of stability at a time of intense turbulence. The IMF’s credibility was helpful during this period of collapse not just of the banks but also of the public trust towards almost all Icelandic institutions. Importantly, the IMF implicitly supported Iceland’s policy of letting institutional creditors of the banks rather than Icelandic taxpayers bear the costs of their collapse; this provided credibility for the policy and limited repercussions. In a reversal of previous IMF policy, capital controls were imposed. The controls helped stabilise the exchange rate, and inflation subsided. The controls also helped recovery after the crisis by shielding the economy from international financial shocks. The direct fiscal cost of the Icelandic crisis was very high, but the considerable and painful fiscal tightening that was a part of the programme was needed to avoid a sovereign debt crisis. This helped in regaining trust from international markets. Mistakes were made in the design and implementation of the IMF programme, but overall, we judge that its contribution was positive. The programme provided one of the elements for restoring trust in Iceland when it was most needed, both domestically and internationally, during the depth of the crisis in 2009–2010.

The global financial crisis has magnified the role of Financial Sector Surveillance (FSS) in the International Monetary Fund's activities. This chapter surveys the various steps and initiatives through which the Fund has increasingly deepened its involvement in FSS. Overall, this process can be characterised by a preliminary stage and two main phases. The preliminary stage dates back to the 1980s and early 1990s, and was mainly related to the Fund's research and technical assistance activities within the process of monetary and financial deregulation embraced by several member countries. The first ‘official’ phase of the Fund's involvement in FSS started in the aftermath of the Mexican crisis, and relates to the international call to include financial sector issues among the core areas of Fund surveillance. The second phase focuses on the objectives of bringing the coverage of financial sector issues ‘up-to-par’ with the coverage of other traditional core areas of surveillance, and of integrating financial analysis into the Fund's analytical macroeconomic framework. By urging the Fund to give greater attention to its member countries' financial systems, the international community's response to the global crisis may mark the beginning of a new phase of FSS. The Fund's financial sector surveillance, particularly on advanced economies, is of paramount importance for emerging market and developing countries, as they are vulnerable to spillover effects from crises originated in advanced economies. Emerging market and developing economies, which constitute the majority of the Fund's 187 members, are currently the recipients of over 50 programmes of financial support from the Fund (including those of a precautionary nature), totalling over $250 billion.

The serious economic difficulties that Peru is confronting, its rapid inflation, the failure of the IMF stabilisation programme, and the recent adoption of a new economic programme are all topics that are worth analysing.

The cycle of external indebtedness of dependent countries has become a huge constraint on any strategy for radical social change.

Argentina has recently entered a new process of debt overhang and renegotiation with the International Monetary Fund and private global creditors. The dominant debate around the country's foreign debt revolves around the conditions that can guarantee the sustainability of repayment. The underlying objective is to remain in the debt system that produces and reproduces dependency.

This chapter will seek to analyze the question of debt sustainability from another point of view: Is it possible to guarantee the (financial) sustainability of the debt at the same time as guaranteeing the sustainability of life? Our argument is that by remaining in the global debt system, Argentina creates conditions that violate the requirements for the sustainability of human and nonhuman life. Drawing on a discussion from Marxist dependency theory and the traditions of Marxist feminism and environmentalism, we will discuss how the debt sustainability argument presupposes the impossibility of reproducing life. In particular, we will show how the conditions required to guarantee debt sustainability in Argentina entail the deepening of the superexploitation of the “productive” and “reproductive” labor force, and the exacerbation of extractivism, putting social reproduction in crisis.

Following the collapse of the banking system in October 2008, the Icelandic authorities attempted to restore confidence in the country’s institutions, improve their functioning and gradually improve the country’s credit rating. The authorities took ownership of an International Monetary Fund-sponsored economic programme that managed to turn the macroeconomic development around when, following a trough in the summer of 2010, an economic expansion started that has continued ever since. They applied for membership in the European Union in order to show their commitment to be part of the international economic community and to have a lender of last resort in the European Central Bank in future crises. The causes of the collapse were investigated and many bankers were prosecuted. Finally, financial regulations were made stricter and the structures of the Central Bank and the supervisory authority were changed for the better. The net effect was to lower the credit default swap rate on the government’s debt, gain access to capital markets and make the Iceland story one of resurrection rather than only hubris and collapse.

The 17 December 2004 was a turning point in both Turkish and European history: The European Council followed the European Commission's recommendation and approved the opening of accession negotiations with Turkey, which commenced on 3 October 2005. The goal of accession to the European Union (EU) has become one of the main driving forces for broadly defined legal, political, economic, and financial reforms in Turkey.²

Examines the evolution of the role of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), created in 1930 to promote co‐operation between central banks, into the arena of the Third World debt problem. The bank has extended loans to developing countries, such as Mexico, Argentina, Nigeria and Brazil since 1982. It arranges these extremely short‐term credits as “bridge loans”, while longer term, conditional assistance through the IMF and the World Bank is being negotiated. This activity reflects the BIS′s effort to contribute to economic and monetary stability in an increasingly interdependent world.

The assignment of targets to instruments in developing countries cannot satisfactorily follow any simple universal rule. Which approach is appropriate is influenced by whether the economy is dominated by primary exports, by the importance of the domestic bond market and bank credit, by the extent of existing restriction in foreign exchange and financial markets, by the presence or absence of persistent high inflation, and by the existence or non‐existence of an active international market in the country's currency. Eighteen observations and maxims on stabilisation policy are tentatively drawn (pp. 64–8) from the material reviewed, and the maxims are partly summarised (pp. 69–71) in a schematic assignment, with variations, of targets to instruments.