The IMF has just hosted a second conference devoted to rethinking macroeconomic policy in the wake of the crisis. After two days of fascinating presentations and discussions, I am certain of one thing: this is unlikely to be our last conference on the subject.

Rethinking and reforms are...

The main theme of our latest outlook is one that you have now heard for a few days: we have moved from a two-speed recovery to a three-speed recovery.

Emerging market and developing economies are still going strong, but in advanced economies, there appears to be a growing bifurcation between...

The sharp and persistent rise in unemployment in advanced economies since the 2008-09 financial crisis is a hotly debated policy issue. Rightly so: High persistent unemployment has major human and economic costs, from loss of morale to loss of skills. More broadly, it seems to undermine the very fabric of...

La reprise économique mondiale se poursuit, mais elle s'est encore affaiblie. Dans les pays avancés, la croissance est maintenant trop basse pour faire diminuer sensiblement le chômage. Dans les principaux pays émergents, la croissance qui avait été jusqu'ici vigoureuse a aussi fléchi.
Je citerai quelques chiffres tirés...

The world economic recovery continues, but it has weakened further. In advanced countries, growth is now too low to make a substantial dent in unemployment. And in major emerging countries, growth that had been strong earlier has also decreased.

Let me give you a few numbers from our...

The global recovery continues, but the recovery is weak; indeed a bit weaker than we forecast in April.

In the Euro zone, growth is close to zero, reflecting positive but low growth in the core countries, and negative growth in most periphery countries.

In the United...

In 2008, Latvia was widely seen as an economic "basket case," a textbook example of a boom turned to bust.

From 2005 to 2007, average annual growth had exceeded 10%, the current account deficit had increased to more than 20% of GDP. By early 2008 however, the boom had come...

For the past six months, the world economy has been on what is best described as a roller coaster.

Last autumn, a simmering European crisis became acute, threatening another Lehman-size event, and the end of the recovery. Strong policy measures were taken, new governments came to power in...

To get back to health, Greece needs two things. First, a lower debt burden. Second, improved economic competitiveness. The new program addresses both.

Bringing down the debt
Some countries have been able to work down heavy public debt burdens. Those that were successful did it through sustained...

After the speech by the IMF's Managing Director in Berlin yesterday, my main messages on the global outlook will not surprise you.

Starting with the bad news -- the world recovery, which was weak in the first place, is in danger of stalling. The epicenter of...

What a difference a year makes ...

We started 2011 in recovery mode, admittedly weak and unbalanced, but nevertheless there was hope. The issues appeared more tractable: how to deal with excessive housing debt in the United States, how to deal with adjustment in countries at the periphery of the...

The global economy has entered a dangerous new phase. The recovery has weakened considerably, and downside risks have increased sharply. Strong policies are urgently needed to improve the outlook and reduce risks.
Growth, which had been strong in 2010, decreased in 2011. We had forecast some slowdown, due...

Last week I traveled to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to participate in a conference on managing capital flows. Organized jointly by the Brazilian authorities and the IMF, the conference brought together experts from both the demand and supply sides of the issue, including many with a wealth...

The world economic recovery is gaining strength, but it remains unbalanced.

Three numbers tell the story. We expect the world economy to grow at about 4.5 percent a year in both 2011 and 2012, but with advanced economies growing at only 2.5 percent, while emerging and developing economies...

The global economic crisis taught us to question our most cherished beliefs about the way we conduct macroeconomic policy. Earlier I had put forward some ideas to help guide conversations as we reexamine these beliefs. I was heartened by the wide online debate and the excellent discussions at...

Before the global economic crisis, mainstream macroeconomists had largely converged on a framework for the conduct of macroeconomic policy. The framework was elegant, and conceptually simple. Caricaturing just a bit, it went like this:

• The essential goal of monetary policy was low and stable inflation. The best way to achieve...

The world economic recovery continues. But it remains a two-speed recovery: slow in advanced countries, and much faster in emerging and developing economies. As a result, tensions and risks are emerging, which require strong policy responses.

The outlook

For some time, global activity was led by fiscal stimulus and the...

The crisis has forced economists and policy makers to go back to their drawing boards. Where did they go wrong, and what implications does the crisis have for both macroeconomic theory and macroeconomic policy making?

This was the topic of this year's IMF Jacques Polak Research Conference. The...

How can governments have their cake and eat it too? How can fiscal policy provide sufficient support to economic activity, and reassure markets that fiscal solvency is not at risk? The poor state of fiscal accounts of most advanced countries calls for austere fiscal policies, before the confidence crisis that...

Achieving a "strong, balanced, and sustained world recovery"--to quote from the goal set in Pittsburgh by the G-20--was never going to be easy. It requires much more than just going back to business as usual. It requires two fundamental and complex economic rebalancing acts.

First, internal rebalancing. When...