From the Editor

• Author: Laura Wallace
• Position: Editor-in-Chief

A couple of years into the new millennium, it is reasonable for us to wonder if the financial turbulence experienced in emerging market economies since the mid-1990s, with its tremendous economic and social costs, will continue. Crises in Turkey in 2001 and Argentina in 2001-02, following those in Mexico in 1994-95, East Asia in 1997-98, Russia in 1998, and Brazil in 1998-99, lead us to ask if the international community is making any progress in preventing such disasters and in resolving those that do occur more quickly and less painfully. Surely, we must have learned a great deal by now. What hope can we-especially the IMF-offer emerging market economies and those countries positioning themselves to participate in the world of international capital flows? And what more have we learned about what those countries themselves should do to avoid trouble?

This issue of Finance & Development explores these questions in a series of articles, "Facing Crises." One message is that we are indeed gaining insights into the causes of crises and, thus, how we might better prevent them. As a result, new efforts are under way. For example, since mid-2001, the IMF has been conducting internally assessments of country vulnerabilities on a more regular and formal basis. And early warning systems based on econometric techniques, which staff have been working on since the Mexican crisis, are providing additional information on where vulnerabilities may lie.

However, another message of these articles is how low we still are on the learning curve, in relation to where we'd like to be. In his column Straight Talk, Kenneth Rogoff, the IMF's Economic Counsellor and Research Department Director, picks up on a key question that needs more study: given a country's financial system and macroeconomic...