Measurement of external positions of member countries has been a main feature of International Monetary Fund (IMF) operations since inception. a first step towards an understanding of current and capital account movements is the understanding of the IMF Manuals. The first edition was used as a guideline for Balance of Payments (BOP) compilers and published in 1948. However since then, important changes had occurred in the manner in which international transactions were conducted. This led to the publication of the second edition in 1977. Since that last publication, liberalization of financial markets, innovations in the creation and packaging of financial instruments and new approaches to the restructuring of external debt have all taken place. As a result, the fifth ediction was introduced and published in 1993 although not implemented by Barbados until two years later. The purpose of this paper is to compare the fourth edition with the new edition with respect to the composition and structure of the current and capital accounts. It also intends to show what the changes would have implied for Barbados' BOP statistic from 1979 until 1994 and how the statistics could impact on the future

Volume 23

Numbers 5-8