ABSTRACT
The Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund created a credit facility to provide temporary balance-of-payments support to member countries.1 To ensure that this support will be temporary, the Articles of Agreement stipulate that countries participating in this facility must approve conditions limiting the country’s macroeconomic policies. These conditions were the “safeguards” devised by IMF staff to “correct balance of payments maladjustments” while not jeopardizing “national or international prosperity.” The derivation and use of these conditions has been quite controversial over the years – some critics found the conditions to be too constraining while others found them too loose; some found them too political while others found them not political enough.2
