Whither New Integrated Policy Framework of the IMF?

By Kavaljit Singh | Commentary | February 28, 2020

Last week, Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, announced that the IMF is rethinking and updating its policy advice to emerging markets with an improved new integrated policy framework. In an op-ed piece in Financial Times (February 19), she wrote: “We are rethinking and updating our advice to member countries. Our goal is to provide country-specific advice on the appropriate mix of policies needed to preserve growth and financial stability. Our new “integrated policy framework” will reassess the costs and benefits of four tools — monetary policy, macroprudential policy, exchange rate interventions and capital flow measures — to help…

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US-China Trade Deal Comes with Caveats

By Kavaljit Singh | Letter (FT) | January 23, 2020

Martin Wolf rightly points out that the US-China trade deal is a partial and defective truce  (January 22). The deal not only keeps in place the bulk of tariffs that were imposed on each other’s products during the trade war but repackages many commitments already made by China unilaterally or at international forums towards establishing a more market-based economy. Nevertheless, the trade deal raises two critical issues.

First, can China force its domestic companies (mostly privately owned) to buy an additional $200bn worth of goods and services from the US instead of from other trading partners with which the country has signed free…

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The US-China Trade Deal is Mostly Symbolic

By Kavaljit Singh | Commentary | January 18, 2020

On January 15, the US President Donald Trump and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He signed a “phase one” trade agreement to de-escalate an 18-month trade war between the world’s two biggest economies. After months of tough negotiations and retaliatory trade actions, both countries agreed to proceed ahead with the “phase one” trade agreement. The core elements of the “phase one” trade agreement include intellectual property, technology transfer, agriculture, financial services, currency, and exchange rate policies. Besides, the deal establishes a bilateral dispute resolution arrangement to resolve any disputes on matters listed in the agreement. The full text of the agreement is available here.

In his…

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Decoding India’s Withdrawal from the RCEP

By Biswajit Dhar | Commentary | November 8, 2019

India’s withdrawal from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the 16-country mega-regional trade agreement in East Asia and also the world’s largest trading bloc, must be seen as evidence that in India, strong voices from the stakeholders can make their impact felt on the government’s decision-making. Few realised that it was the first time in post-independence India, a cross-section of domestic constituencies, including farmers, trade unions, representatives of major sectors of Indian industry and civil society organisations, spoke in one voice against the threats to their future posed by the RCEP.

They gave a clear message that the ceding the country’s economic space to foreign…

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Wanted: A Visionary to Transform the IMF

By Kavaljit Singh | Letter (FT) | August 14, 2019

John Taylor (“Choice of new IMF head must not be dictated by the old EU order”, August 12) points out that the International Monetary Fund needs new leadership from outside the European bloc to address the multiple challenges facing the world today. As I have spent a considerable part of my professional life in opposing the outdated convention that a European leads the IMF while an American heads the World Bank, I think that the job should go the person who could usher in a fundamental change in the fund’s policy outlook besides restoring its credibility.

There is a long list of failed IMF…

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