Research at the IMF

ANNOUNCEMENT

IMF Chief Economist Maurice Obstfeld to Retire

Maurice “Maury” Obstfeld, Economic Counsellor and Director of the Research Department at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), will retire from the Fund at the end of December 2018, Managing Director Christine Lagarde announced today. Mr. Obstfeld, who has served in the post commonly known as “Chief Economist” for more than three years, will return to the Department of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. Read more...

NEW RELEASE

External Sector Report

The IMF's 2018 ESR shows that global current account balances stand at about 3¼ percent of global GDP. Of this, 40-50 percent are now deemed excessive, i.e. some countries are saving too much, and others are borrowing too much. And while global imbalances remain broadly unchanged in recent years, they have become increasingly concentrated in advanced economies. Read more...

CONFERENCE

Euro at 20 Conference

The Central Bank of Ireland (CBI), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the IMF Economic Review held a joint conference on "The Euro at 20". Since its launch in January 1999, the euro project has received much praise as well as criticism. As the currency turns twenty, the conference took stock of the euro’s performance. It was hosted by Central Bank of Ireland and will take place in Dublin, Ireland on June 25-26, 2018. Read more...

LATEST RESEARCH

IMF Global Housing Watch

The Global Housing Watch is a webpage that tracks developments in housing markets across the world on a quarterly basis. The Housing Watch provides current data on house prices as well as metrics used to assess valuation in housing markets, such as house price-to-rent and house-price-to-income ratios. Access the data and read the latest report.