Imf Covid 19 Response A New Short Term Liquidity Line To Enhance The Adequacy Of The Global Financial Safety Net

The COVID-19 pandemic has created severe disruption in the global financial system, with many emerging market and developing countries (EMDCs) facing liquidity shortages. In the context of intensified demand for liquidity and heightened global uncertainty, staff has revisited the 2017 proposal for a new facility to provide liquidity support to the Fund’s membership. This paper proposes the establishment of a new Short-term Liquidity Line (SLL) as a special facility in the General Resources Account (GRA), based on the key features of the 2017 blueprint.

In response to the global crisis, the Fund overhauled its lending toolkit and boosted its resources, strengthening its ability to pre-empt financial crises. This paper—with the companion paper on Mapping Cross-Border Financial Linkages—takes another look at the recent global crisis in the context of a broader review of past systemic crises to (i) assess whether rising linkages across countries is a source of latent systemic instability and (ii) ascertain whether the global financial safety net (GFSN) is adequate to contain crisis and contagion risks arising from such systemic instability. This paper develops a new methodology to identify systemic crises and reviews associated policy responses from a global, rather than country-level, perspective

The first relates to the adequacy and to reconcile crisis lending with good incentives in the new reliability of the new safety net; the second, to the incentives multipolar environment. [...] The oldest of the currently active RFAs originated in the demise Unpopular IMF-sponsored adjustment programs during the of the Bretton Woods system and the oil crises of the 1970s.2 1997-1999 Asian financial crisis spurred a new, ambitious They include the 1976 Arab Monetary Fund (AMF), the 1978 attempt to create a broad-based Asian RFA. [...] In addition, the Fed established swap lines to the creation, in November 2011, of a network of unlimited with the Bank of Canada, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, the albeit still temporary swap lines between the Bank of Canada, Banco do Brasil and the Monetary Authority of Singapore that the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the ECB, the Federal were not drawn on (Goldberg, Kennedy and Miu 2011 [...] Countries all over the world - initially benefited a small elite, whereas the costs of the crisis (including governments, and increasingly the private sector - began to the need to repay a crisis lender such as the IMF) were borne borrow from banks in advanced countries and, starting in the by the general population. [...] This can be inferred from First, pure international liquidity crises of the type that would the fact that the IMF was almost always repaid in its lending preclude any moral hazard are virtually non-existent - at least to middle-income and advanced countries, and that the interest within the set of crises that involve actual lending by the IMF or charged by the IMF has been broadly appropriate to t.

A recovery is underway, but the economic fallout from the global pandemic could be with us for years to come. With the crisis exacerbating prepandemic vulnerabilities, country prospects are diverging. Nearly half of emerging market and developing economies and some middle-income countries are now at risk of falling further behind, undoing much of the progress made toward achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

The policy response to the COVID-19 shock included regulatory easing across many jurisdictions to facilitate the flow of credit to the economy and mitigate a further ampli-fication of the shock through tighter financial conditions. Using an intraday event study,this paper examines how stock prices—a key driver in financial conditions—reacted to regulatory easing announcements in a sample of 18 advanced economies and 8 emerging markets. The paper finds that overall, regulatory easing announcements contributed to looser financial conditions, but effects varied across sectors and tools. Financial regulatory easing led to lower valuations for financial sector stocks, and higher valuations for non-financial sector stocks, particularly for industries that are more dependent on bank financing. Furthermore, valuations declined and financial conditions tightened following announcements related to easier bank capital regulation while equity valuation rose and financial conditions loosened after those about liquidity regulation. Effects from non-regulatory financial measures appear to be generally more muted.

The Fund’s precautionary toolkit rests on the simple proposition that facilitating crisis prevention is far less costly than crisis resolution. Its value increases with systemic risk. Serial shocks to the global trading and financial systems pose significant and persistent headwinds for well-integrated emerging markets. An adequately funded global financial safety net (GFSN) with a suite of precautionary tools allows qualifying members to respond to balance of payments (BoP) shocks, reducing the incidence of crises and limiting contagion. The Fund is the only layer of the GFSN available to all members; other layers vary in their availability and externalities. In this context, the overarching objective of this review of the Flexible Credit Line (FCL), Short-term Liquidity Line (SLL), and Precautionary and Liquidity Line (PLL) is to ensure that the precautionary facilities toolkit (henceforth “the toolkit”) is fit for purpose for the challenges ahead.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a severe global recession with differential impacts within and across countries. This paper examines the possible persistent effects (scarring) of the pandemic on the economy and the channels through which they may occur. History suggests that deep recessions often leave long-lived scars, particularly to productivity. Importantly, financial instabilities—typically associated with worse scarring—have been largely avoided in the current crisis so far. While medium-term output losses are anticipated to be lower than after the global financial crisis, they are still expected to be substantial. The degree of expected scarring varies across countries, depending on the structure of economies and the size of the policy response. Emerging market and developing economies are expected to suffer more scarring than advanced economies.

The April 2020 Global Financial Stability Report (GFSR) assesses the financial stability challenges posed by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Chapter 1 describes how financial conditions tightened abrubtly with the onset of the pandemic, with risk asset prices dropping sharply as investors rushed to safety and liquidity. It finds that a further tightening of financial conditions may expose vulnerabilities, including among nonbank financial institutions, and that bank resilience may be tested if economic and financial market stresses rise. Vulnerabilities in global risky corporate credit markets, including weakened credit quality of borrowers, looser underwriting standards, liquidity risks at investment funds, and increased interconnectedness, could generate losses at nonbank financial institutions in a severe adverse scenario, as discussed in Chapter 2. The pandemic led to an unprecedented and sharp reversal of portfolio flows, highlighting the challenges of managing flows in emerging and frontier markets. Chapter 3 shows that global financial conditions tend to influence portfolio flows more during surges than in normal times, that stronger domestic fundamentals can help mitigate outflows, and that greater foreign participation in local currency bond markets may increase price volatility where domestic markets lack depth. Beyond the immediate challenges of COVID-19, Chapter 4 explores the profitability pressures that banks are likely to face over the medium term in an environment where low interest rates are expected to persist. Chapter 5 takes a broader perspective on physical risks associated with climate change. It finds that these risks do not appear to be reflected in global equity valuations and that stress testing and better disclosure of exposures to climatic hazards are essential to better assess physical risk.

The Asia-Pacific region was the first to be hit by the COVID-19 pandemic; it put a strain on its people and economies, and policymaking became exceptionally difficult. This departmental paper contains the assessment of the key challenges facing Asia at this critical juncture and policy advice to the region both to address the current challenges and to build the foundations for a more sustainable and inclusive future. The paper focuses on (1) adjusting to the COVID-19 shock, (2) using unconventional policies when policy space is limited, (3) dealing with debt, and (4) helping the vulnerable and greening the recovery. The paper first presents the different ways countries are adjusting to the COVID-19 shock.

On December 12, 2022, the IMF’s Executive Board reviewed the adequacy of the Fund’s precautionary balances. The review took place on the standard two-year cycle, after an interim review in December 2021. Precautionary balances comprise the Fund’s general and special reserves. They are a key element of the IMF’s multi-layered framework for managing financial risks. Precautionary balances provide a buffer to protect the Fund against potential losses, resulting from credit, income, and other financial risks. In conducting the review, the Executive Board applied the rules-based framework agreed in 2010. Precautionary balances have risen further since the 2021 interim review and coverage metrics have strengthened. At the same, credit and other financial risks have also increased. The pace of reserve accumulation is expected to remain adequate. Against this background, Executive Directors endorsed staff’s proposal to retain the current medium-term target of SDR 25 billion and the minimum floor of SDR 15 billion. The Board also discussed the role of surcharges, which are primarily a component of the Fund’s risk management framework but also contribute to reserves accumulation.