IMF 구제금융지원의 특징과 경제적 파급효과

The characteristics and economic effects of the IMF emergency financial support programs in Korea

It has been about two years since Korea was forced to go the International Monetary Fund(IMF) for a bailout. Despite strong financial and policy interventions by the IMF, there have been an increasing number of critical and skeptical views on the operative role of the IMF. Therefore, restructuring the IMF-led international financial system as well as designing policies for the future crisis-prevention through international cooperation are emerging as urgent issues. Many research paper discusses that IMF financial programs have had a positive effect on the recovery effects of east Asian countries such as, Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia, as well as assessing the timeliness and promptness of the IMFs intervention. This study recognizes that the East Asian financial crisis primarily resulted from reaction to panic and temporary illiquidity, and was further exacerbated by the failure of affected governments to respond with the appropriate policy measures. Furthermore, the prompt response of the IMF to the requests of the East Asian countries in crisis enabled the maintenance of their external payments. However, the East Asian countries crisis has focused unprecedented attention on the IMF. While the ensuing debate is a healthy part of the process by which the institution is held accountable, the spotlight on the IMF has also revealed a number of misconceptions about its evolving role in the IMF. The East Asian countries financial crisis is very different from the set of problems that the IMF typically aims to solve. The IMFs usual target is a government living beyong its means, financing budget deficits by printing money at the central bank. The result is inflation, together with a weakening currency and a drain of foreign exchange reserves. The IMFs East Asian financial program comprises the traditional policy of restraining aggregate demand and the relatively new structural restructuring policy. In particular, the financial program requires East Asian countries to comply with its demand for rigorous restructuring in the weak financial sector, which is considcred a fundamental cause of the crisis. The policy of restraining aggregate demand and the accompanied high interest rate policy of the IMF failed to grasp the intrinsic nature of the East Asian countries. The episodes of frequent revisions of the IMF financial program in the course of dealing with the crisis have proved its inefectiveness. The IMF’s recent emphasis on imposing major structural and institutional reforms as opposed to focusing on balance-of-payments adjustments will have adverse consequences in both the short term and the more distant future. Maintaining the working framework of the IMF and World Bank, and strengthening the function and role of the IMF are likely to be the direction of changes in the international financial architecture. Finally, while the purposes of the IMF have not changed, it has over the years been called upon the advise and assist an ever-wider array of countries facing and ever-greater diversity of problems and circumstances. Of course, the IMF has maintained its primary focus on sound money, prudent fiscal policies, and open markets as preconditions for macroeconomic stability and growth. But, increasingly, the scope of its policy concerns has broadened to include other elements that also contribute to economic stability and growth. Thus, to different degress in different countries, the IMF is also pressing, generally together with the World Bank, for sound domestic financial systems.