Web Links

• p. 443: Go to http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/downloads.cfm to review the Heritage Foundation's evaluations of the degree of economic freedom in different nations.
• p. 446: Go to http://www.reason.com/0105/fe.hs.citadels.shtml to read an article on dead capital in Cairo and elsewhere by Hernando DeSoto of Peru's Institute for Liberty and Democracy.
• p. 450: To link to an Asian Development Bank analysis of the effects of foreign direct investment on developing nations, go to http://www.adb.org/Documents/Books/ADO/2004/part030200.asp.
• p. 455: To learn about the International Monetary Fund's view on its role in international financial crises, go to http://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/ib/2001/032601.htm.

Issues and Applications Web Resources:

• To access the World Bank’s comparative information about the costs of going into business in many of the world’s nations, go to http://rru.worldbank.org/DoingBusiness/SnapshotReports/Default.aspx
• For a monthly report by the World Bank on economic growth and development in the world’s poorest nations, go to http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/.

The International Monetary Fund
The purpose of this exercise is to evaluate the IMF's role in promoting global economic growth.

     Title: International Monetary Fund

     Navigation: Go to the IMF's home page at http://www.imf.org/, and click on About the IMF in the top navigation bar.

Application
Read each entry, and then answer the question.

1. Click on the link at the top-middle of the Web page titled Purposes of the IMF. Which of these purposes are most directly related to promoting a higher rate of global economic growth? Are any related more indirectly to this goal?

2. Back up to About the IMF, and click on Surveillance. Based on this discussion, what type of asymmetric information problem does IMF surveillance attempt to address?

3. Back up to About the IMF, and click on How Does the IMF Lend? Which IMF lending "facilities" appear to be aimed at maintaining stability of international flows of funds? Which appear to be longer-term loans similar to those extended by the World Bank?