Government Sources by Subject: International Monetary Fund (IMF)

Introduction

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is concerned with global economic growth and security. It is a specialized agency of the United Nations. The IMF works to promote exchange rate stability, balanced growth of international trade, and poverty reduction.

In order to help assure global stability, IMF activities fall within three categories:

Surveillance of economic developments on a national, regional, and global scale.
Technical assistance for low- and middle-income countries on designing and/or upgrading macroeconomic, financial, and structural policies.
Lending to countries in need of financial assistance in order to rebuild international reserves, stabilize currencies, and/or pay for imports.

You can expect to find the following types of information and/or publications from the FAO:

Research, statistics, forecasts, and analysis based on tracking of global, regional, and individual economies and markets
The Global Financial Stability Report; published twice per year, provides up-to-date analysis of developments in global financial markets
Annual economic health checks of member countries
Updates about its lending programs

Core Resources

IMF eLibrary
The International Monetary Fund's (IMF) eLibrary simplifies analysis and research with direct access to the IMF’s periodicals, books, working papers and studies, and data and statistical tools.

International Financial Statistics (IFS)
"The IFS database contains approx. 32,000 time series covering more than 200 countries and areas, including all series appearing on the IFS country pages; exchange rate series for all Fund member countries, plus Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles: major Fund account series; and most other world, area, and country series from the IFS World Tables." Also held in CDROM and in print.

Factsheets List
"Plain-English explanation" of the IMF's work on key issues.
World Economic Outlook (WEO) Databases
Find trade data for countries and country groups, commodity prices, national accounts, inflation, unemployment rates, balance of payments, and fiscal indicators. Download entire dataset, or by country, or by country group & commodity prices. Data available from 1980, projections for next 5 years.

Additional Resources

IMF DataMapper
Using the most current data from the WEO Database, create maps and charts relating to GDP (data series will continue to be added). Data from 1980, projections for next 5 years.
IMF - Data and Statistics
Use this page to find links to IMF data, standards/codes, manuals/guides, most visited statistics, and more.
Government Finance Statistics (GFS)
The GFS database contains statistical data on government financial operations for Fund (i.e. IMF) member governments. Find "detailed annual statistical data on revenue, expense, transactions in assets and liabilities, and stocks of assets and liabilities."

Print and CD Sources

International Financial Statistics (IFS), CDROM format*
*PREFERRED FORMAT; also available in print.

IMF

Starting Points

About the IMF
Learn about the IMF, its organization & finances, history, governance, work, and agenda.
World Economic Outlook (WEO) in Maps
Interactive map using indicators from the April 2010 WEO Database. Hover your mouse over the map to view historical data and projections for selected indicators (inflation, GDP, etc.).
Selected Online IMF Data Sources
Use this table to determine the best IMF data source for your needs.