In the years since the Great Recession, global financial institutions have been forced to reexamine and reevaluate the thinking that informs their policy prescriptions towards nations undergoing financial crises. In this special journal issue, the contributors review patterns of policy stability and change at the IMF, and work to explain the causes behind these policy recalibrations.

The contributors show that the crisis ignited a reassessment regarding how the IMF would position itself as a pivotal player in global economic governance. While some new ideas and evidence definitively emerged within IMF decision-making, this process was often tempered by the nature of the institution and the powerful interests that control its governing structure.

Where change did occur, its causal generators could be found in some combination involving IMF staff politics, innovations coming from academic and IMF economists and, perhaps most notably, the emerging economic powers’ creative leveraging of institutional fora both within and outside the Fund.

Click here to learn more about our event: Has the Crisis Changed the IMF?
on November 20, 2014 at Boston University.