Ukraine


Book Description

This paper focuses on Ukraine’s Ex-Post Evaluation of Exceptional Access Under the 2015 Extended Arrangement. Sound fiscal and monetary policies since the 2014–2015 crisis have resulted in a sharp reduction in Ukraine’s external and internal imbalances. Public debt was put on a downward path, inflation has declined, and international reserves have recovered. The new Stand-By Arrangement will provide an anchor for the authorities’ efforts to address the impact of the crisis, while ensuring macroeconomic stability and safeguarding achievements to date. Together with support from the World Bank and the European Union, it will help address large financing needs. The program will focus on safeguarding medium-term fiscal sustainability, preserving central bank independence and the flexible exchange rate, and enhancing financial stability while recovering the costs from bank resolutions. The National Bank of Ukraine has skillfully managed monetary policy during a very challenging period. Central Bank independence should be preserved, and monetary and exchange rate policies should continue to provide a stable anchor in the context of the inflation-targeting regime, while allowing orderly exchange rate adjustment and preventing liquidity stress.




Ukraine


Book Description

Ukraine was one of the countries hardest hit by the global economic and financial crisis; it was also one of the first countries supported by a Stand-By Arrangement (SBA). The Ex Post Evaluation of Exceptional Access Under the 2008 SBA reveals that the achievement of program objectives was mixed, with core short-term objectives largely met, but little progress made toward meeting medium-term objectives. The banking system stabilized, the current account adjusted quickly, social arrears and sovereign default were avoided, and a gradual economic recovery started from mid-2009.




Towards Market Economies


Book Description

The book is about economic developments and policies in the first decade or so after the independence of the fifteen countries that emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. From 1992 to 2003, the author was in charge of the IMF’s work on the fifteen countries that emerged from the former Soviet Union. In those years, the countries were beginning the transition from the Soviet central planning system towards market economies. The book focuses on the role of the IMF in this transition. It explains what the IMF was trying to do and why.




Ukraine


Book Description

This paper discusses Ukraine’s Request for Extended Arrangement Under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) and Cancellation of Stand-by Arrangement (SBA). Despite tangible progress under the SBA, the crisis in Ukraine has increased its balance of payments and adjustment needs beyond what can be achieved under the current program. The authorities’ new four-year IMF-supported program aims to decisively address these challenges. The program lays out a strategy to restore financial and economic stability and resolve long-standing structural obstacles to growth. In view of Ukraine’s large external financing needs and the authorities’ strong policy commitments, the IMF staff supports approval of Ukraine’s four-year Extended Arrangement under the EFF with access equivalent to SDR 12.348 billion.




In Pursuit of Liberalism


Book Description

Though the fall of the Soviet Union opened the way for states in central and eastern Europe to join the world of market-oriented Western democracies, the expected transitions have not been as easy, common, or smooth as sometimes perceived. Rachel A. Epstein investigates how liberal ideas and practices are embedded in transitioning societies and finds that success or failure depends largely on creating a social context in which incentives held out by international institutions are viewed as symbols of an emerging Western identity in the affected country. Epstein first explains how a liberal worldview and institutions like the European Union, World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization go hand-in-hand and why Western nations assume that a broad and incremental program of incentives to join will encourage formerly authoritarian states to reform their political and economic systems. Using Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Ukraine as case studies, she demonstrates the limits of conditionality in the face of national social perceptions and elucidates the three key points around which a consensus within the state must emerge before international institutions can expect liberalization: domestic officials must be uncertain about how changing policies will affect their interests; the status of international and domestic institutions must not be in jeopardy; and the proposed polices must seem credible. In making her case, Epstein cleverly bridges the gap between the rationalist and constructivist schools of thought. Offering new data on and fresh interpretations of reforming central bank policies, privatizing banks with foreign capital, democratizing civil-military relations, and denationalizing defense policy, In Pursuit of Liberalism extends well beyond the scope of previous book-length studies.




International Monetary Fund Annual Report 2021


Book Description

A recovery is underway, but the economic fallout from the global pandemic could be with us for years to come. With the crisis exacerbating prepandemic vulnerabilities, country prospects are diverging. Nearly half of emerging market and developing economies and some middle-income countries are now at risk of falling further behind, undoing much of the progress made toward achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals.




Global Waves of Debt


Book Description

The global economy has experienced four waves of rapid debt accumulation over the past 50 years. The first three debt waves ended with financial crises in many emerging market and developing economies. During the current wave, which started in 2010, the increase in debt in these economies has already been larger, faster, and broader-based than in the previous three waves. Current low interest rates mitigate some of the risks associated with high debt. However, emerging market and developing economies are also confronted by weak growth prospects, mounting vulnerabilities, and elevated global risks. A menu of policy options is available to reduce the likelihood that the current debt wave will end in crisis and, if crises do take place, will alleviate their impact.




Responding to Financial Crisis


Book Description

The Asian financial crisis of 1997–98 was devastating for the region, but policymakers at least believed that they gained a great deal of knowledge on how to prevent, mitigate, and resolve crises in the future. Fifteen years later, the Asian developing countries escaped the worst effects of the global crisis of 2008–10, in part because they had learned the right lessons from their own experience. In this important study, the Asian Development Bank and Peterson Institute for International Economics join forces to illuminate the con¬trast between Asia’s performance during the more recent crisis with its performance during its own crisis and the gap between what the United States and European Union leaders recommended to Asia then and what they have practiced on themselves since then. The overriding lessons emerging from the essays in this volume are that countries need to prepare for crises as if they cannot be prevented, make room for stabili¬zation policies and deploy them rapidly when crises hit, and address the need for self-insurance globally if they can, or regionally if they must. Contributors include Simon Johnson, William R. Cline, Joseph E. Gagnon, Stephan Haggard, Masahiro Kawai, Peter Morgan, Donghyun Park, Arief Ramayandi, Kwanho Shin, Edwin M. Truman, Shahin Vallee, Changyong Rhee, and Lea Sumulong




13 Bankers


Book Description

In spite of its key role in creating the ruinous financial crisis of 2008, the American banking industry has grown bigger, more profitable, and more resistant to regulation than ever. Anchored by six megabanks whose assets amount to more than 60 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, this oligarchy proved it could first hold the global economy hostage and then use its political muscle to fight off meaningful reform. 13 Bankers brilliantly charts the rise to power of the financial sector and forcefully argues that we must break up the big banks if we want to avoid future financial catastrophes. Updated, with additional analysis of the government’s recent attempt to reform the banking industry, this is a timely and expert account of our troubled political economy.