Europe > Iceland
Abstract
This paper analyzes that the IMF has moved beyond its traditional fiscal-centric approach to recognize that social protection can also be macro-critical for broader reasons including social and political stability concerns. Evaluating the IMF’s involvement in social protection is complicated by the fact that there is no standard definition of social protection or of broader/overlapping terms such as social spending and social safeguards in (or outside) the IMF. In this evaluation, social protection is understood to include policies that provide benefits to vulnerable individuals or households. This evaluation found widespread IMF involvement in social protection across countries although the extent of engagement varied. In some cases, engagement was relatively deep, spanning different activities (bilateral surveillance, technical assistance, and/or programs) and involving detailed analysis of distributional impacts, discussion of policy options, active advocacy of social protection, and integration of social protection measures in program design and/or conditionality. This cross-country variation to some degree reflected an appropriate response to country-specific factors, in particular an assessment of whether social protection policy was macrocritical, and the availability of expertise from development partners or in the country itself.
Abstract
The report assesses IMF surveillance in the period leading up to the global financial and economic crisis and offers recommendations on how to strengthen the IMF's ability to discern risks and vulnerabilities in the future. Chapters discuss the unfolding of the crisis and IMF messages prior to the crisis, and analyze the complex factors that influenced the IMF's performance in the run-up to the crisis. A companion CD provides background papers not included in this report.
Abstract
This paper reports the second event organized by the Per Jacobsson Foundation in 2008 that took place on Sunday, October 12, in the auditorium of the International Finance Corporation in Washington, DC, in the context of the Annual Meetings of the IMF and the World Bank. From time to time—usually every two years—an additional event is organized in conjunction with the Bank for International Settlements and held in the context of its Annual General Meeting in Switzerland. The Per Jacobsson Foundation was established in 1964 to commemorate the work of Per Jacobsson, the third Managing Director of the IMF (1956–1963) and prior to that, the head of the Monetary and Economic Department of the Bank for International Settlements (1931–1956). The main purposes of the Foundation are to foster and stimulate discussion of international monetary problems, to support basic research in this field, and to disseminate the results of these activities.