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Understanding the effects of east‐west component of interplanetary magnetic field (IMF‐By) on the equatorial ionospheric electrodynamics is challenging due to the complex response caused by the simultaneous occurrence of multiple mechanisms during disturbed times. The extreme geomagnetic storm on 10 May 2024 caused by multiple‐ICME interactions accompanied with unprecedented IMF‐By magnitudes and its polarity, changed from west to east by 130 nT during northward IMF‐Bz turning. The ground ionosonde observations of h’F from near‐equatorial locations, along with the latitudinal profiles of plasma densities from Swarm satellites reveal the first observational evidence of the impact of strong IMF‐By near the dusk‐terminator (17–19.5 LT), causing strong dawn‐to‐dusk ionospheric electric fields during northward IMF‐Bz. This electric field produces large uplift of the ionospheric plasma near equator and subsequent super‐fountain effect near the dusk. The combined effect of increased IMF‐By amplitudes and viscous terms might have resulted into the enhanced coupling of solar wind with the magnetosphere. Plain Language Summary The southward component of interplanetary magnetic field (IMF‐Bz) is a primary driver for the solar wind‐magnetosphere coupling, which produces geomagnetic disturbances on the Earth. Whereas east‐west component of IMF (IMF‐By) can modify the effects of these disturbances. Understanding the effects of IMF‐By on the equatorial ionosphere is challenging due to the complex response caused by the simultaneous occurrence of multiple mechanisms during disturbed times, such as ring current, prompt penetration and disturbance dynamo electric fields etc. During the extreme geomagnetic storm which occurred on 10 May 2024, the IMF‐By component was very intense. Both, Bz and By components of IMF made sudden and giant transitions, changing their orientation rapidly. We have investigated the effects of this rarest event on the equatorial ionospheric electric fields. We find penetration of strong eastward electric field near dusk during northward and eastward IMF conditions. Key Points Unprecedented IMF‐By amplitudes during northward IMF show strong eastward ionospheric electric fields at dusk near equator The effects are strongest near dusk and overshielding effects are evident near noon First observational evidence of the impact of strong IMF‐By on the equatorial ionosphere near dusk

The IMF provides loans to countries in financial distress at a relatively low interest rate. In this article we calculate how much the seven largest debtors to the IMF have saved on interest payments during the Asian crisis and its aftermath. We explain how the IMF can charge these low interest rates and at what cost for creditor countries. The conditionality attached to the use of IMF resources in the form of policy measures reduces moral hazard behaviour; we argue that this is a better instrument than raising interest rates on IMF loans.   JEL Codes: F34, F32, F33, O16

In recent years, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has re-emerged as a central actor in global economic governance. Its rhetoric and policies suggest that the organization has radically changed the ways in which it offers financial assistance to countries in economic trouble. We revisit two long-standing controversies: Has the policy content of IMF programmes evolved to allow for more policy space? Do these programmes now allow for the protection of labour and social policies? We collected relevant archival material on the IMF's lending operations and identified all policy conditionality in IMF loan agreements between 1985 and 2014, extracting 55,465 individual conditions across 131 countries in total. We find little evidence of a fundamental transformation of IMF conditionality. The organization's post-2008 programmes reincorporated many of the mandated reforms that the organization claims to no longer advocate and the number of conditions has been increasing. We also find that policies introduced to ameliorate the social consequences of IMF macroeconomic advice have been inadequately incorporated into programme design. Drawing on this evidence, we argue that multiple layers of rhetoric and ceremonial reforms have been designed to obscure the actual practice of adjustment programmes, revealing an escalating commitment to hypocrisy.

Does the International Monetary Fund (IMF) increase inequality? To answer this question, this article introduces a new empirical strategy for determining the effects of IMF programs that exploits the heterogeneous effect of IMF liquidity on loan allocation based on a difference-in-differences logic. The results show that IMF programs increase income inequality. An analysis of decile-specific income data shows that this effect is driven by absolute income losses for the poor and not by income gains for the rich. The effect persists for up to 5 years, and is stronger for IMF programs in democracies, and when policy conditions, particularly those that demand social-spending cuts and labor-market reforms, are more extensive. These results suggest that IMF programs can constrain government responsiveness to domestic distributional preferences.

Many countries in the Global South have increased their exposure to Chinese debt in recent years. With the COVID-19 pandemic and the US interest rate hike, many countries have struggled to meet their debt repayment obligations. As a result, they have turned to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for emergency assistance. We argue that the involvement of the Fund wipes out much of the political benefits of China loans for executive leaders of borrowing countries. IMF conditionality requires countries to increase fiscal transparency, which threatens the viability of kickback schemes and increases the likelihood that corrupt leaders will be called out on their misdealing. As a result, we expect corrupt leaders with China debt to leave office earlier when they try to address debt defaults with IMF loans than when they avoid them. Using survival analysis on a dataset of 115 developing countries between 2000 to 2015, we find that leaders indebted to China that go under an IMF program leave office earlier compared to when they do not go under an IMF program. In line with our argument, this effect is strongest in more corrupt regimes. Our argument and analysis contribute to understanding international finance’s political economy, specifically how mixing creditors can be politically risky for leaders.

Alfvén waves are important carriers of solar wind energy into the Earth's magnetosphere and upper atmosphere. The observed distribution of Alfvénic power at low altitude exhibits significant dawn‐dusk asymmetry with different causes and impacts on the dayside and nighside. The nightside asymmetry has been shown to be controlled by the meridional gradient in the ionospheric Hall conductance. It is not clear what controls the dayside asymmetry. Both the ionospheric conductance gradient and orientation of the y‐component of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) are possible factors. We examined both possibilities using global magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations. Our results show: (a) The dayside distribution of Alfvénic power is very sensitive to the orientation of IMF By, with enhanced power in the dawn (dusk) sector of the northern hemisphere for positive (negative) By (and opposite in the southern hemisphere); and (b) gradients in ionospheric conductance exert a weaker influence on the dayside asymmetry. Plain Language Summary Alfvénic energy flux, which has an important impact on the low‐altitude space environment, is observed to be enhanced in the postnoon (prenoon) sector relative to prenoon (postnoon). In this study, we use global MHD simulations to determine the extent to which the dayside asymmetry in Alfvénic energy flux is controlled by the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) and gradients in ionospheric conductance. Most of the dayside Alfvénic power is generated on open magnetic field lines, so we might expect the IMF By component to exert a significant influence on pre/postnoon flux distributions. The simulation experiments confirm this expectation and further show that the effects of gradients in ionospheric conductance are comparatively weaker. The results explain why some satellite observations on average exhibit a asymmetric enhancement in Alfvénic energy fluxes. Key Points Dawn‐dusk asymmetry in dayside Alfvénic power is due to different magnetic field configurations associated with the direction of IMF By Ionospheric conductance contributes less to the asymmetric dayside Alfvénic Poynting flux distribution around noon

We show that the time series of sunspot group areas has a gap, the so-called Gnevyshev gap (GG), between ascending and descending phases of the cycle and especially so for the even-numbered cycles. For the odd cycles this gap is less obvious, and is only a small decline after the maximum of the cycle. We resample the cycles to have the same length of 3945 days (about 10.8 years), and show that the decline is between 1445 – 1567 days after the start of the cycle for the even cycles, and extending sometimes until 1725 days from the start of the cycle. For the odd cycles the gap is a little earlier, 1332 – 1445 days after the start of the cycles with no extension. We analyze geomagnetic disturbances for Solar Cycles 17 – 24 using the Dst-index, the related Dxt- and Dcx-indices, and the Ap-index. In all of these time series there is a decline at the time, or somewhat after, the GG in the solar indices, and it is at its deepest between 1567 – 1725 days for the even cycles and between 1445 – 1567 days for the odd cycles. The averages of these indices for even cycles in the interval 1445 – 1725 are 46%, 46%, 18%, and 29% smaller compared to surrounding intervals of similar length for Dst, Dxt, Dcx, and Ap, respectively. For odd cycles the averages of the Dst- and Dxt-indices between 1322 – 1567 days are 31% and 12% smaller than the surrounding intervals, but not smaller for the Dcx-index and only 4% smaller for the Ap-index. The declines are significant at the 99% level for both even and odd cycles of the Dst-index and for the Dxt-, Dcx- and Ap-indices for even cycles. For odd cycles of the Dxt-index the significance is 95%, but the decline is insignificant for odd cycles of the Dcx- and Ap-indices.

This paper takes a historical perspective to search for the major causes of Pakistan’s stop-go growth cycles and come to the conclusion that, to varying degrees, the foreign exchange constraint provides a major explanation for these cycles of irregular economic growth in the country, particularly since the 1990s.

We analyze the factors that increase the likelihood that other nations will follow China's global economic leadership. While our theoretical framework incorporates the conventional argument that China pulls in followers with economic benefits, we focus on grievances with the current global order that have the effect of pushing countries toward the rising new leader. We find that grievances about global financial instability are particularly important push factors. Our results show that countries that have experienced more financial crises, more variable capital account policies, more volatile portfolio capital outflows, and more social unrest during IMF programs are more likely to support China's global leadership than leaders of nations that have been less exposed to these problems. We find no evidence that grievances about global governance, or grievances about discriminatory US trade policies, are related to foreign support for China's global economic leadership. Overall, our evidence is consistent with the interpretation that leaders want to reform and preserve the WTO and the IMF, which have worked reasonably well for them under US leadership. At the same time, they have incentives to follow China's economic leadership on global capital flows, emphasizing long-term infrastructure and development finance over short-term flows which, under the current order, have imposed large costs on many economies.

Abstract This article aims to analyse, based on the theoretical contributions of neo-Gramscian authors, the narrative mechanisms mobilized in the construction of the feminist turn of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) during Christine Lagarde’s tenure. Through network analysis, discourse analysis and content analysis, we conclude that although Lagarde, besides being the first female director, did not represent a turning point compared to her predecessors. However, she did use her authority from being a woman in a position of power to legitimize free market values as part of a feminist agenda. The director’s speeches and documents from the period emphasize free market and economic insertion as solutions for gender equality. Thus, the IMF’s feminist turn mobilizes concepts such as empowerment and leadership in an effort to link greater market participation to the promotion of gender equality. Therefore, there is an adoption of narrative elements related to feminist ideas in an instrumental way, aiming to legitimize the institution’s traditional neoliberal policies.