New Report Evaluating IMF Advice to Central Banks

The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) Monetary Policy report was released at the Institute on June 27, 2019. Charles Collyns, director of the IEO, and Prakash Loungani, assistant director of the IEO, who led the evaluation team that produced the report, presented its findings. Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan, University of Maryland, and Joseph E. Gagnon, PIIE, both shared their insights on the report.

The new IEO report assesses the quality of IMF advice to central banks over the past decade and provides recommendations on how the Fund could raise its game on monetary policy issues. The report covers advice to the major central banks carrying out unconventional monetary policies (UMP) over this period, to several smaller advanced economies, and to emerging markets that faced spillovers from UMP. While recognizing the IMF’s wide-ranging response to these developments, the report also identifies several shortcomings in the Fund’s engagement.

Charles Collyns joined the IEO as director in February 2017, after working as managing director and chief economist at the Institute of International Finance. He served as assistant secretary for international finance at the US Treasury Department from 2010 to 2013.

Joseph E. Gagnon has been a senior fellow at PIIE since September 2009. Immediately prior, he was the visiting associate director at the Federal Reserve Board’s Division of Monetary Affairs. Previously, he served as the associate director at the Fed’s Division of International Finance and as a senior economist.

Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan is the Neil Moskowitz Endowed Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and a research fellow at the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR). She was the Duisenberg Fellow at the European Central Bank in 2008 and held a position as lead economist/adviser for the Middle East and North Africa Region at the World Bank from 2010 to 2011.

Prakash Loungani, assistant director in the IMF’s IEO, was previously the division chief for development macroeconomics in the IMF’s research department and co-chair of the working group on jobs and growth. Prior to joining the IMF, he worked at the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and the University of Florida.