ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a statistical analysis of surveillance content based on the sample of Article IV staff reports for 50 countries. This helps clarify the extent to which geopolitical biases compromise the content of IMF surveillance. In order to better understand if the IMF surveillance process generates information that is useful to politicians, the chapter traces the extent to which US government officials reference it over two years: 2010 and 2011. The empirical claim is that counting the number of mentions of the US Article IV consultation tells us about the extent to which the surveillance process is useful to politicians. The chapter focuses on the relationship between surveillance on financial markets in both developed and developing countries. The existence of deep financial markets also brings with it extensive analytical capabilities as well that offer additional independent perspectives on governments.
