News Brief No. 98/50

News Brief: IMF Announces External Evaluation of Its Economic Research Activities

December 10, 1998

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved proposals by its Evaluation Group, chaired by Tom Bernes, IMF Executive Director, for an external evaluation of the IMF’s economic research activities. The evaluation will focus on the contribution of economic research in the IMF to the institution’s overall objectives and will be conducted by three independent experts: Frederic S. Mishkin, A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Economics at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business; T.N. Srinivasan, Samuel C. Park Jr. Professor of Economics and Chairman of the Department of Economics at Yale University; and Francesco Giavazzi, Professor of Economics at Milan’s Bocconi University. Professor Mishkin, formerly Director of Research at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, will chair the external evaluation panel.

The experts have been asked to assess the present scale and organization of research activities, the way in which the level of resources and economic research programs are chosen, and how they relate to the overall work of the IMF. The evaluation will also seek to assess the value added and usefulness of the economic research to the IMF, its member countries, and within the wider economics and economic policy community.

It is expected the evaluators will start their work in January 1999, and they are expected to complete their report no later than July 1999.

This is the third external evaluation project approved by the IMF’s Executive Board. The first external evaluation concerned the IMF’s enhanced structural adjustment facility (ESAF), which was published as External Evaluation of the ESAF, and is also available on the IMF’s website (http://www.imf.org). The second external evaluation, which is expected to be concluded in the summer of 1999, concerns IMF surveillance activities.