Back Matter
Author:
Louellen Stedman https://isni.org/isni/0000000404811396 International Monetary Fund

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Mr. John Hicklin
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Roxana Pedraglio
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Abstract

This report is the seventh in a series of evaluation updates by the Independent Evaluation Office of the IMF (IEO) that return to past IEO evaluations and assess the continuing relevance of their main conclusions. The report revisits the 2007 evaluation of IMF Exchange Rate Policy Advice, which found that the IMF was “not as effective as it needed to be” in fulfilling its responsibilities for exchange rate surveillance in the period 1999–2005. While acknowledging the inherent complexity of providing exchange rate policy advice, including the lack of professional consensus on many of the key issues, the evaluation observed serious weaknesses in the IMF’s work on key analytical issues and in its engagement with members. The update finds that the IMF has substantially overhauled its approach to exchange rate policy advice since 2007. Key steps taken include: adoption of a more comprehensive approach to exchange rate surveillance under the 2012 Integrated Surveillance Decision; development of enhanced analytical tools; a new institutional view on capital flows; and introduction of the annual External Sector Report that provides an integrated picture of the external balances of major economies. The IMF continues to work on further enhancements of its approach. Nonetheless, the update concludes that challenges remain that impact the effectiveness of the IMF’s work in an area central to its mandate. The approach for assessing external balances and exchange rates continues to be contentious, in part reflecting differing views across the membership about the process of external adjustment. There are also ongoing questions in other areas, including considerations for exchange rate regime choice, attention to policy spillovers, the institutional view on capital flows, and data availability. The update suggests that the persistence of key issues identified in 2007 merits a full evaluation by the IEO.

Annex 1. Excerpts from IMF Articles of Agreement

Article IV, Section 1. General Obligations of Members

Recognizing that the essential purpose of the international monetary system is to provide a framework that facilitates the exchange of goods, services, and capital among countries, and that sustains sound economic growth, and that a principal objective is the continuing development of the orderly underlying conditions that are necessary for financial and economic stability, each member undertakes to collaborate with the Fund and other members to assure orderly exchange arrangements and to promote a stable system of exchange rates. In particular, each member shall:

  • (i) endeavor to direct its economic and financial policies toward the objective of fostering orderly economic growth with reasonable price stability, with due regard to its circumstances;

  • (ii) seek to promote stability by fostering orderly underlying economic and financial conditions and a monetary system that does not tend to produce erratic disruptions;

  • (iii) avoid manipulating exchange rates or the international monetary system in order to prevent effective balance of payments adjustment or to gain an unfair competitive advantage over other members; and

  • (iv) follow exchange policies compatible with the undertakings under this Section.

Article IV, Section 3. Surveillance Over Exchange Arrangements

  • (a) The Fund shall oversee the international monetary system in order to ensure its effective operation, and shall oversee the compliance of each member with its obligations under Section 1 of this Article.

  • (b) In order to fulfill its functions under (a) above, the Fund shall exercise firm surveillance over the exchange rate policies of members, and shall adopt specific principles for the guidance of all members with respect to those policies. Each member shall provide the Fund with the information necessary for such surveillance, and, when requested by the Fund, shall consult with it on the member’s exchange rate policies. The principles adopted by the Fund shall be consistent with cooperative arrangements by which members maintain the value of their currencies in relation to the value of the currency or currencies of other members, as well as with other exchange arrangements of a member’s choice consistent with the purposes of the Fund and Section 1 of this Article. These principles shall respect the domestic social and political policies of members, and in applying these principles the Fund shall pay due regard to the circumstances of members.

Annex 2. Status of Implementation Plan in Response to Board-Endorsed IEO Recommendations on IMF Exchange Rate Policy Advice, 2007–16

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This column provides excerpts from the PMRs prepared by IMF staff; the full reports are available at http://www.ieo-imf.org/ieo/pages/Multiheader.aspx.

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Statement by the Managing Director

On the Independent Evaluation Office Report on IMF Exchange Rate Policy Advice: Revisiting the 2007 IEO Evaluation October 20, 2017

I would like to thank the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) for preparing this informative and timely report, which provides an update on the IMF’s progress in its approach to exchange rate policy advice since 2007. I am pleased with its main finding that the IMF has substantially overhauled its approach to exchange rate policy advice, and concur that some issues need our continued attention. I would like to note that management and staff remain fully committed to the role of the External Sector Report (ESR) in Fund surveillance.

Exchange rate assessment and policy advice is central to the Fund’s mandate. The Fund is charged by its Articles of Agreement to exercise firm surveillance over the exchange rate policies of member countries. This update by the IEO is informative and timely given the central role of the IMF in this area and the extensive past and ongoing work to refine the scope and modalities of external sector surveillance, including to reflect lessons over the last decade.

I am pleased with the report’s findings that the IMF has substantially overhauled its approach to external sector assessments and exchange rate policy advice since 2007 and enhanced its work in an area central to its mandate. Indeed, as the IEO points out, the 2012 Integrated Surveillance Decision provides for a broader approach to exchange rate analysis that aims to address the interrelationships between economies, including assessing external positions in a multilaterally-consistent manner, paying greater attention to the connections between domestic and external stability, and assessing external positions taking into account broader considerations. Moreover, the IMF has refined its methodological tools to enhance this analysis and its consistency across countries; and the ESR provides a multilaterally-consistent picture of the external balances of major economies and the policy actions needed to address excess external imbalances and reduce global risks.

Recognizing that the ESR is a well-accepted framework for external sector surveillance, the report points out that some areas continue to be contentious. The Fund has acknowledged since the inception of the ESR the importance of the transparency of the External Balance Assessment (EBA) models and the process for deriving external assessments and has made further progress in increasing transparency, including in explaining staff judgment when adjustments are needed, and will continue its efforts to refine the EBA models. Overall, I would like to note that management and staff remain fully committed to the role of the ESR in Fund surveillance. The findings of this report provide useful insights that can help us further improve moving forward.

1

Key portions of Article IV describing the IMF’s responsibilities and member obligations are excerpted in Annex 1.

2

The 2007 evaluation also considered advice to member countries on exchange rate policies in the context of program support and technical assistance, which for many member countries are central to their engagement with the IMF.

3

Recent IEO updates cover closely related areas, for instance: Multilateral Surveillance: Revisiting the 2006 IEO Evaluation (IEO, 2017); and The IMF’s Approach to Capital Account Liberalization: Revisiting the 2005 IEO Evaluation (IEO, 2015).

4

A full-fledged evaluation would require interviews with country authorities, more in-depth analysis of IMF tools and analytical work, and more extensive engagement with staff.

5

The desk study examined a sample of twenty 2015 and 2016 Article IV staff reports selected to illustrate a broad range of country circumstances (18 countries and 2 country groupings): Botswana, Brazil, Chile, China, the euro area, Germany, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, Vietnam and WAEMU. Interviews were conducted in October–November 2016 and April–July 2017.

6

The IEO evaluation helped catalyze some of these developments, while others would have occurred in any case.

7

The 2007 evaluation report and accompanying documents, including the Statement by the Managing Director, Response from Staff, and the Summing Up of the Executive Board Discussion, can be found at http://www.ieo-imf.org/ieo/files/completedevaluations/05172007exrate_full.pdf.

8

The 2007 evaluation did not consider the multilateral consultation conducted by the Fund in 2006–07.

9

After several rounds of discussion, the Decision achieved broad support, but not full consensus, in the Executive Board (IMF, 2007c). Blustein (2013) provides an account of these events.

10

See, for example, Fischer (2008).

11

The IEO evaluation of IMF Interactions with Member Countries (IEO, 2009) also found that some authorities were concerned that attention to exchange rate policy issues had been at the expense of other topics of interest and was counterproductive.

12

Although not referenced in the Summing Up, some Executive Directors still expressed reservations or skepticism about the decision and its potential to enhance traction, as reflected in the minutes of the meeting (IMF, 2012d).

13

A Guidance Note on Surveillance was issued in September 2012; the 2014 TSR led to a new Guidance Note issued in 2015 (IMF, 2012f; 2015b).

14

A survey of all authorities for the 2014 TSR found, on the other hand, that only three-fifths of authorities were familiar with the ISD (IMF, 2014a).

15

This chapter draws on the results of the IEO desk study described in the introduction.

16

Changes included clarification of the distinction between managed and independent floating, now referred to as floating and free floating, and introduction of a distinction between “formal fixed and crawling pegs, and arrangements that are merely peg-like or crawl-like.”

17

Comparing the de facto regime classification in the 2014 AREAER with that in the 2015 Article IV staff report for 191 countries, the IEO identified discrepancies in the classification for five cases, or about 3 percent. One of these appeared to result from a change in the exchange rate regime between the time that AREAER and the Article IV report were completed. In addition, there were a number of cases in which the language in the staff report did not fully conform with the AREAER categories; these were not considered to be discrepancies in classification for the purposes of this update although a detailed evaluation could take a different view.

18

Such a formal assessment was not provided for six countries in which the regime was classified as floating or free floating. In the case of one country with a soft crawling peg, a formal assessment was not provided in 2016, but the 2015 Staff Report concluded that the regime served the country’s interests and should be sustained.

19

A July 2009 IMF staff paper explored exchange rate regime choices and concluded that “a thorough analysis of the cross-country data does not support any single ‘prescription,’” although there were “clear trade-offs” in particular regime choices, both for individual countries and, in some cases, for the stability of the global system (Ghosh, Ostry, and Tsangarides, 2010). This paper was discussed informally in a Board seminar but did not yield a Board-approved institutional policy or framework.

20

The 2014 TSR similarly found that country authorities welcomed the expanded coverage of external sector assessments in the EBA methodology, although some had reservations about drawing policy conclusions from the new approach, which they regarded as still experimental (Boorman and Ter-Minassian, 2014).

21

IMF staff indicate that the EBA current account model provides a better fit and is less subject to short-term fluctuations than, for instance, the real exchange rate model. Further, they note that the current account model captures factors affecting saving and investment, and the financial/capital account.

22

Use of the CGER was discontinued after the 2014 TSR, with the Research Department no longer providing technical support for the methodology.

23

“Directors acknowledged that although some improvements had been made to the External Balance Approach methodology, there remains scope for further refinements” (IMF, 2017e).

24

These consultations did not constitute surveillance, as no legal framework existed at that time for such consultations as part of multilateral surveillance.

25

Taking into account this effort, the 2011 IEO evaluation of IMF Performance in the Run-Up to the Financial and Economic Crisis concluded that the IMF appropriately stressed the urgency of addressing the persistent and growing global current account imbalances (IEO, 2011).

26

The Managing Director launched this initiative at the conclusion of the 2011 TSR and Review of the 2007 Surveillance Decision.

27

The external sector analysis for all but three economies (Hong Kong SAR, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore) in the ESR is based on the EBA.

28

The external sector assessments presented in the ESR are also included in Article IV surveillance staff reports, often as an annex that is identical to the country page in the ESR.

29

It was initially envisioned that the ESR would be published bi-annually, with each WEO cycle (IMF, 2011e).

30

IEO analysis suggests that consistency remains an issue, including in the presentation of the IMF’s assessments. For instance, in the individual country pages, the IMF staff assessment of real exchange rates was expressed: in terms of “over/under/fair valuation” for 12 countries; as “stronger than/above or weaker than/below the level implied by fundamentals and desirable policies” for 12 countries; and as a “REER gap” for 4 countries. In 1 country page, the assessment describes the outcome of several models but does not provide a bottom line staff assessment. In 3 countries, the country page indicates that the assessment of the exchange rate reflects temporary factors or is expected to change.

31

According to the April 2017 WEO, preliminary data show flow imbalances holding steady overall in 2016, while imbalances continued to grow on a stock basis. Moreover, the IMF expects this trend to accelerate, given projections that the current account deficit in the U.S. will expand and that large current account surpluses will continue in European creditor countries and advanced Asian economies (IMF, 2017a). The 2017 ESR noted the unusual persistence of large current account surpluses, and the potential for continued growth of stock imbalances going forward (IMF, 2017d).

32

There was not a full consensus in the Executive Board on adopting the institutional view, as a few Directors noted that it seemed premature and that they would have preferred further work and discussion (IMF, 2012g).

33

Further discussion of the institutional view can be found in IEO (2015).

34

The 2012 IEO evaluation of International Reserves: IMF Concerns and Country Perspectives documented some of the challenges in developing a standard approach. It noted that some members perceived that the Fund’s efforts to introduce a metric for assessing reserve adequacy were specifically aimed at limiting reserve accumulation. These members took the view that countries hold reserves for many reasons, and that a single indicator could not capture the complexities associated with the costs and benefits of holding reserves, which are likely to be weighed differently by each country authority (IEO, 2012).

35

This constituted, in part, an element of follow up on the 2012 IEO evaluation. The ARA metrics were broadly endorsed by the Executive Board, although some Directors continued to raise concerns about the idea that reserve adequacy issues would be systematically discussed in IMF surveillance, with some contending that such a systematic approach was “premature or unwarranted” and expressing the importance of country circumstances in considering reserve levels (IMF, 2015a).

36

Following a February 2015 informal seminar in the Board about how to apply the provisions of the ISD in the context of unconventional monetary policies and foreign exchange intervention under disorderly market conditions, staff prepared a reference note, shared with the Board for information, to help guide country teams in analyzing the implications of members’ policies in these areas and providing appropriate advice (IMF, 2016b).

37

The 2011 TSR found that discussions on reserve adequacy levels were either limited or unclear in about 60 percent of sample Article IV staff reports for countries which have their own national currency (IMF, 2011a).

38

The staff report for one country in the sample included a selected issues paper assessing the effectiveness of intervention in reducing exchange rate volatility (IMF, 2016f).

39

This followed questions raised by the 2011 TSR about the sufficiency of data for conducting thorough exchange rate and external balance analysis and concerns expressed by Executive Directors in the context of the 2012 review of data provision about whether the IMF was devoting sufficient attention to collection of timely foreign exchange intervention data.

40

The “2012 Review of Data Provision” found a discrepancy between ratings of country provision of data in Article IV reports and the results of the staff survey about the same issue, “suggest[ing] there may be some hesitancy by teams” to determine that data shortcomings are impeding surveillance (IMF, 2012e).

41

Staff teams are required to choose among the following ratings: (A) data provision is adequate for surveillance; (B) data provision has some shortcomings but is broadly adequate for surveillance; or (C) data provision has serious shortcomings that significantly hamper surveillance (IMF, 2013b).

42

IEO (2017) discusses this issue further.

43

In 2011, separate reports were prepared as background documents for the respective Article IV consultations of five systemically important countries (China, the euro area, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States), and a consolidated Spillover Report was also issued, drawing from the individual reports.

44

This series of notes can be found at http://www.imf.org/en/Publications/SPROLLs/Spillover-Notes.

45

Evenhandedness is a concept based in the cooperative nature of the IMF, which under the Articles of Agreement applies consistent rules across the membership, for example, for lending in proportion to member countries’ quotas. Guitián (1992) described evenhandedness as a “fundamental” principle of the IMF, “according to which the IMF is expected to act without discrimination: treatment of members must remain equal and comparable, allowing for no preferences in favor of any country or group of countries,” although “uniformity cannot be interpreted to mean the provision of equal treatment regardless of circumstances … [but instead] must allow room for taking account of unequal circumstances.” Callaghan (2014) noted that, “the discussion during a seminar on surveillance held during the April 2014 meeting of the IMFC made clear that member countries held a range of views on what constituted evenhanded surveillance.” As noted in the text, the Executive Board adopted a set of principles for evenhandedness in surveillance in December 2016.

46

For instance, the 2016 ESR stated that “current accounts in euro area improved in most countries, and especially in debtor countries” in a report that described an overall increase in the euro area’s current account surplus, contributing to a widening of imbalances. While the 2016 Article IV staff report for Germany clearly concluded that the country’s external position was substantially stronger than implied by medium-term fundamentals and desirable policy settings, and called for actions to speed up rebalancing, the report described “improvement in the current account” even as the surplus widened to 8.5 percent of GDP in 2015. The assessment also stated that “the government contributed about ⅓ percent of GDP to the improvement in the current account in 2015” even as the IMF staff recommendation from the previous year called for policy measures to reduce the surplus. The 2017 staff paper on “Euro Area Policies” (IMF, 2017c) used more balanced language, conveying declining current account deficits as a positive development and persistent or rising surpluses as a negative one: “Most net external debtor countries have had current account improvements. By contrast, some large net external creditor countries have failed to curb their large and persistent current account surpluses.” Nonetheless, some Directors continued to express a desire for more neutral descriptions of imbalances.

47

These concerns echo findings of the 2009 IEO evaluation of IMF Interactions with Member Countries (IEO, 2009).

48

The 2007 IEO evaluation found that intense discussions on exchange rate issues, including regime choice, took place in a number of cases “with little or no documentation in staff reports;” the evaluation highlighted that “the lack of reporting to the Executive Board of substantive issues in the context of Article IV consultations … raise[s] issues of accountability as well as the appropriate bounds of confidentiality.” Although the Board did not initially endorse the 2007 evaluation report’s recommendation to clarify expectations for staff in this area, the ensuing Management Implementation Plan (MIP) referred to a pending discussion of this issue in the Board’s Ad Hoc Committee on Confidential Information. The 2013 IEO evaluation of The Role of the IMF as Trusted Advisor found that there was “little clarity” regarding what information about countries’ policy positions and intentions must be provided to the Executive Board and noted that “significant variability” in staff practices in this area suggested “ambiguity on how to deal with confidential discussions” (IEO, 2013).

49

As noted in the section “Exchange Rate Regimes” above, the Executive Board discussed a staff paper on exchange rate regime choices in 2009 in an informal seminar.

  • Collapse
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Revisiting the 2007 IEO Evaluation
  • Blustein, Paul, 2013, Of Balance: The Travails of Institutions that Govern the Global Financial System (Ontario, Canada: Centre for International Governance Innovation).

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Boorman, J., and T. Ter-Minassian, 2014, “External Study: Report on Interviews” (Washington: International Monetary Fund).

  • Callaghan, M., 2014, “Evenhandedness of Fund Surveillance” (Washington: International Monetary Fund).

  • Fischer, Stanley, 2008, “Mundell-Fleming Lecture on Exchange Rate Systems, Surveillance, and Advice,” IMF Staff Papers, Vol. 55, pp. 36783.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Ghosh, Atish R., Jonathan D. Ostry, and Charalambos, Tsangarides, 2010, Exchange Rate Regimes and the Stability of the International Monetary System, IMF Occasional Paper No. 270 (Washington: International Monetary Fund).

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Guitián, M., 1992, “The Unique Nature of the Responsibilities of the IMF,” IMF Pamphlet Series No. 46 (Washington: International Monetary Fund).

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Habermeier, K., A. Kokenyne, R. Veyrune, and H. Anderson, 2009, “Revised System for the Classification of Exchange Rate Arrangements,” IMF Working Paper No. 09/211 (Washington: International Monetary Fund).

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Independent Evaluation Office of the International Monetary Fund (IEO), 2007, IMF Exchange Rate Policy Advice (Washington: International Monetary Fund).

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Independent Evaluation Office of the International Monetary Fund (IEO), 2009, IMF Interactions with Member Countries (Washington: International Monetary Fund).

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Independent Evaluation Office of the International Monetary Fund (IEO), 2012, International Reserves: IMF Concerns and Country Perspectives (Washington: International Monetary Fund).

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    • Export Citation
  • Independent Evaluation Office of the International Monetary Fund (IEO), 2013, The Role of the IMF as Trusted Advisor (Washington: International Monetary Fund).

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  • Independent Evaluation Office of the International Monetary Fund (IEO), 2015, The IMF’s Approach to Capital Account Liberalization: Revisiting the 2005 IEO Evaluation (Washington: International Monetary Fund).

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  • Independent Evaluation Office of the International Monetary Fund (IEO), 2017, Multilateral Surveillance: Revisiting the 2006 IEO Evaluation (Washington: International Monetary Fund).

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  • International Monetary Fund (IMF), 2009, “The 2007 Surveillance Decision: Revised Operational Guidance,” June (Washington).

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  • International Monetary Fund (IMF), 2013a, “2013 Review of the Fund’s Transparency Policy,” May (Washington).

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  • International Monetary Fund (IMF), 2014a, “2014 Triennial Surveillance Review—Overview Paper,” July (Washington).

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  • International Monetary Fund (IMF), 2015a, “Assessing Reserve Adequacy—Specific Proposals,” April (Washington).

  • International Monetary Fund (IMF), 2015b, “Guidance Note for Surveillance Under Article IV Consultations,” SM/15/71, March (Washington).

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  • International Monetary Fund (IMF), 2016e, World Economic Outlook, October (Washington).

  • International Monetary Fund (IMF), 2016f, “Selected Issues Papers,” IMF Country Report No. 16/349, October (Washington).

  • International Monetary Fund (IMF), 2016g, “Management Implementation Plan for the 2016 IEO Evaluation of Behind the Scenes with Data at the IMF,” SM/16/305, October (Washington).

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  • International Monetary Fund (IMF), 2016h, “IMF Executive Board Discusses Review of Experience with the Institutional View on the Liberalization and Management of Capital Flows,” IMF Press Release No. 16/573, December (Washington).

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  • International Monetary Fund (IMF), 2017a, World Economic Outlook, April (Washington).

  • International Monetary Fund (IMF), 2017b, “Increasing Resilience to Large and Volatile Capital Flows—The Role of Macroprudential Policies,” July (Washington).

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  • International Monetary Fund (IMF), 2017d, 2017 External Sector Report, July (Washington).

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