International Monetary Fund Assessment Project
The International Monetary Fund Assessment Project operates on the generous support of foundations, corporations, and individual donors, under the aegis of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution (AdTI).
The IMF Assessment Project was established in 1990 by a group of present and former public officials, business leaders, scholars, journalists and others interested in the International Monetary Fund. [1]
The purpose of this project is to provide objective reporting and analysis on the policies and activities of the International Monetary Fund, and to make this information available to policy-makers and the general public.
It seems that Gregory Fossedal was, at least for some time, leading this project:
- "Gregory Fossedal president of Emerging Markets Group and founder and chairman of the IMF Assessment Project, a widely renowned non-partisan private sector research effort." [2]
- At the end of the article 'The IMF's Role in Zaire's Decline' written by Gregory Fossedal and published on May 15, 1997 in the Wall Street Journal, it said "Mr. Fossedal is chairman of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution and director of its IMF Assessment project." [3] [4]
- "Gregory Fossedal, chairman of the bipartisan watchdog IMF Assessment Project ..'" [5]
The project members wrote:
- "IMF Conditionality, 1980-91", a white paper researched and prepared by the staff of the IMF Assessment Project (Arlington, VA: Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, 1992) [6] [7]
For that White Paper, they studied 90 IMF programmes between 1980 and 1991 and found that the successful achievement of monetary and fiscal targets depended crucially on the implementation of fiscal and monetary policies as planned. [8]
Steven Greenhouse's article about the project and the study led by Gregory A. Fossedal, was published on March 10, 1992 in The New York Times. For some reason, he didn't mention the title of the White Paper in that article. About the IMF Assessment Project he wrote:
"The project, which was financed by foundations, companies and individuals, sought to shed more light on the I.M.F.'s closely guarded operations. It was carried out by a group of economists, both conservative and liberal, under the aegis of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, a nonprofit research foundation based in Arlington, Va. The project's advisory board includes Cyrus R. Vance, who was Secretary of State under President Jimmy Carter, and William E. Simon, who was Treasury Secretary under President Gerald R. Ford." [9] [10]
Probably that White Paper is also what Jack Kemp (then Co-Chairman of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution) was refering to in this statement in 1997:
"The 1992 International Monetary Fund Assessment Project found that the typical African tax rate on income was higher than 50 percent and applied to incomes as low as $2,000." [11]
At this moment Robert Toricelli seems to be the Co-Chairman of the IMF Assessment Project.
In February 1994 [12] the committee members were:
Senior Advisory Board:
Manuel Johnson
Edmund Muskie
William Simon
Cyrus Vance
Congressional Advisory Board:
Rep. Jim Bacchus
Sen. Bill Bradley
Sen. Hank Brown
Rep. Joseph Kennedy
Rep. Connie Mack
Rep. Steve Neal
Rep. Pat Shroeder
Rep. Esteban Torres
Corporate Advisory Board:
Mitchell Daniels, Eli Lilly
Gerald Gidwitz, Helene-Curtis
Lawrence Kudlow, Bear-Stearns
George Petty, Repap Enterprises
John Sears, Attorney
Theodore H. Sorenson
Academic Advisory Board:
Prof. Samuel P. Huntington, Harvard University
Prof. Ronald McKinnon, Stanford University
Alan Reynolds, Hudson Institute
Prof. Shirley Williams, Kennedy School of Government
Other AdTI Projects
