This book provides an assessment of the role of the International Monetary Fund in poor countries. In recent years, a large portion of the work of the IMF has focused on the economies of low-income countries by aiming to create conditions conducive to poverty reduction and stable economic growth. More than two fifths of the IMF's 185 members are low-income countries and many others have substantial pockets of poverty in their populations. Since economic development and the reduction of poverty are the most important economic challenges that these countries face, how can the IMF best help them? How can the imperative of macroeconomic and financial stability be reconciled with the requirements for sustained economic growth? This volume brings together the research of leading economists, political scientists, and historians to suggest ways for the IMF to address these issues effectively

About the Author:
James Boughton is Historian of the International Monetary Fund and, since 2001, Assistant Director in the Policy Development and Review Department at the IMF. From 1981 until he was named Historian in 1992, he held various positions in the IMF Research Department. Dr. Boughton holds a Ph.D. in economics from Duke University, and before joining the IMF staff, he was Professor of Economics at Indiana University and had served as an economist at the OECD in Paris. His publications include a textbook on money and banking, a book on the U.S. Federal funds market, two IMF books that he co-edited, and articles in professional journals on international finance, monetary theory and policy, international policy coordination, and the history of economic thought.
Domenico Lombardi is President of The Oxford Institute for Economic Policy (OXONIA). Dr. Lombardi is an Associate Faculty Member at Nuffield College, a Senior Research Associate with the Global Economic Governance Programme as well as the Department of International Development at Queen Elizabeth House, and a Research Member at Exeter College, Oxford University. Previously a Visiting Scholar at The Institute for Fiscal Studies, London, he has advised the Executive Boards of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Dr. Lombardi is a member of leading policy fora including the Brookings Institution and the Bretton Woods Committee's International Council, is a Managing Editor of World Economics and sits on the editorial boards of various journals. His academic research addresses a number of policy-related questions in macroeconomics and international economics.