Workshop: Data And Research Directions Using The IMF Database

In the morning of April 5 2017, at 59C Nguyen Dinh Chieu Campus, UEH Center for Database and Economic Analysis (CDEA), held a workshop entitled "Data and Research Directions using the IMF Database" presented by Ms. Nguyen Thi Van Anh, an analyst at IMF Vietnam.

The workshop had the attendance of Prof. Dr. Nguyen Trong Hoai - Vice President and more than 40 lecturers, PhD students and graduate students.

The presentation of Ms. Nguyen Thi Van Anh included introduction to IMF, its database and its publication system.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) was formed in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, USA in July 1944. From its 44 founding members, the IMF is currently comprised of 189 members. It is working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world. The IMF’s fundamental mission is to ensure the stability of the international monetary system. It does so in three ways:

- Monitoring and advising 189 member countries;
- Lending to countries with balance of payments difficulties; and
- Developing capacity of member countries through technical assistance and training.

Main IMF publications and resources include: World Economic Outlook (WEO), Global Financial Stability Report (GFSR), Fiscal Monitor, Direction of Trade Statistics (DOTS), Government Financial Statistics (GFS), International Financial Statistics (IFS), etc.

In particular, International Financial Statistics (IFS) is a widely used database in research. International Finance Statistics (IFS) is a financial statistical database of about 200 countries and regions. Many of the data from 1948 up to now include balance of payments, exchange rates, interest rates, international liquidity, labor, currency and banking, national accounts, population, status of IMF member countries, etc.

In the same event, representatives from Center for Database and Economic Analysis (CDEA), a division of UEH, presented the research directions using IMF data. Major research directions include development finance, the relationship between economic growth and financial market development / financial integration, the relationship between institutions and the development of financial markets / financial integration / financial risk, international capital flows and associated issues. In addition, there were approaches to combine macroscopic data from the IMF with macro data at the level of local enterprises and banks bank level to analysie relevant issues such as operational / risk performance of the enterprise / bank in relationship with macro variables.

During this workshop, IMF pledged to support UEH with an account to access IMF publications and data globally. This is a very significant contribution of IMF to UEH, demonstrating the close academic relationship between IMF and UEH.

Some photos of the workshop: