The Endless Business of Reforming the IMF: A review of Joseph P. Joyce’s The IMF and global financial crises: Phoenix rising? and some further thoughts

Biagio Bossone

Published: December 2014

In this article I review Joseph P. Joyce’s thought-provoking book The IMF and global financial crises: Phoenix rising?” (Cambridge University Press, 2012). The book is a comprehensive yet concise appraisal of the IMF’s history of successes and failures in preventing crises, and in dealing with their consequences. The review is an opportunity for expressing some thoughts of my own on the subject, picking on Joyce’s reflection on how to reform the IMF, considering the needs of today’s global economy. The review discusses the role of the IMF’s largest shareholding countries in steering the institution’s strategic direction and action, as well the intellectual capture by the economic paradigm that has long prevailed in the highly financially developed world.