A brief guide to researching the IMF

1. Learning Resources –
International Monetary Fund (IMF)
Learning Resources
Regent’s University London

2. Online Research Induction
Segment One – International Monetary Fund
Cluster
Bretton Woods Institutions
Segment 1: International Monetary Fund
Segment 2: World Bank
Segment 3: General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (GATT)
World Trade Organization (WTO)
Segment 4: Alternative / Critical Research on the Bretton
Woods Institutions
Segment 5: OECD

3. Segment One – International Monetary Fund
Online Research Induction for Students of
• International Management
• International Political Economy
• International Business
• International Relations

4. • providing information about statistics, reports, papers,
publications provided by the IMF
• enable students to find supportive arguments for
essays, assignments and discussions
• delivering main-stream information and alternative
views
The topic will be

5. International Monetary Fund
(www.imf.org)
Data/Additional Data Sources
(http://www.imf.org/external/data.htm#data)
 Range of time series data on IMF
 lending,
 exchange rates
 other economic and financial indicators
 manuals
 guides
 other material on statistical practices at the IMF, in member
countries, and of the statistical community at large

6. International Monetary Fund
(www.imf.org)
By clicking on these
‘crosses’, sub-contents
open with more
information resources
For email
notification,
sign up here
Links to other
international
organisations

7. International Monetary Fund
(www.imf.org)
World Economic Outlook Database
(http://www.imf.org/external/ns/cs.aspx?id=28)
 database is created twice-yearly
 published in the April and September World Economic
Outlook publications
 see also the World Economic Outlook Reports

8. Leads to data sets
- by country
- by country groups
- entire data set
- Latest updates
Further information provided
in different formats (.pdf
booklets, podcasts,
databases
Most statistical
data are available
under this
heading

9. Information retrieval by three
different search modules
Recent
updates
Link to the
discussion
forum

10. International Monetary Fund
(www.imf.org)
World Economic Outlook Reports
(www.imf.org/external/ns/cs.aspx?id=29)
 IMF staff economists' analyses of global economic developments
 concentration on near and medium term
 chapters give an overview / detailed analysis of the world
economy;
 consideration on issues affecting industrial countries, developing
countries, and economies in transition to market
 address topics of pressing current interest
 annexes, boxes, charts, and an extensive statistical appendix

11. Working
papers and
Reports are
found under
‘Publications’
Website is
available in
different
languages

12. Most reports
accessible as
.pdf files,
either in
English or
French

13. IMF e-Library Data (http://elibrary-data.imf.org/)
 offers predefined data reports
 country
 topic
 dataset
International Monetary Fund
(www.imf.org)

14. Three ways of retrieving
predefined data reports:
- by Country
- by Topic
- by Data Source

15. Predefined Data Reports – Select a Country – Germany
Data are export-able
to Word docs,
Excel and are print-able
in .pdf format
By Country

16. Predefined Data Reports – Select a Topic – External Trade
By Topic
Data are export-able
to Word docs,
Excel and are print-able
in .pdf format
More data
reports available

17. International Monetary Fund
Int. Financial Data (http://elibrary-data.
imf.org/FindDataReports.aspx?d=33061&e=169393)
 Reports on
(www.imf.org)
 Economic Indicators  World Reserve Positions in Fund
 World Consumer Prices  World Special Drawing Rights (SDR)
Holdings
 World Export  World Total Fund Credit and Loans
Outstanding
 World Foreign Exchange  World Total Reserves
 World Gold  World Total Reserves minus Gold
 World Gross Domestic Products,
Real

18. Different reports
available
Data are export-able to
Word docs, Excel and
are printable in .pdf
format

19. International Monetary Fund
(www.imf.org)
Currency Composition of
Official Foreign Exchange
Reserve (www.imf.org/external/np/sta/cofer/eng/index.htm)
 managed by the Statistics Department of the IMF but reported on a voluntary and
strictly confidential basis
 disseminates end-of-period quarterly data in the format of statistical aggregates.
 data published are aggregates for each currency for three groupings of countries:
 total,
 advanced economies
 emerging and developing economies

20. International Monetary Fund
(www.imf.org)
Currency Composition of
Official Foreign Exchange
Reserve
 currencies identified in COFER are: $, £, Y, C$, A$,
Euro
 at present 145 reporters, consisting of
 IMF member countries
 non-member countries/economies
 other foreign exchanges reserve holding entities

21. For further information
Please contact in the Library
Sven Griesenbeck
higgens@regents.ac.uk