01724cas a2200241 a 4500 AALejournalIMF009771 230101c9999 xx r poo 0 0eng d 5.00 USD 9781451868739 1018-5941 BD-DhAAL BD-DhAAL Sumlinski, Mariusz. International Reserves-Too Much of a Zipf's Thing / Mariusz Sumlinski. Washington, D.C. : International Monetary Fund, 2008. 1 online resource (19 pages) IMF Working Papers <strong>Off-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required <strong>On-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required Electronic access restricted to authorized BRAC University faculty, staff and students Concentrated distribution of international reserves is puzzling. I show that the growth rates of international reserves bear only a very weak relationship to their initial stocks (scaled by GDP or in absolute terms), and that, by implication, the cross-sectional distribution of reserves conforms to Zipf's law. The law states that the size of reserves is inversely related to their ranking. Evidence in favor of the law is strong and time robust. I compare the crosssection distribution of international reserves embedded in the WEO projections to that implied by Zipf's law and find that international reserves are much less concentrated in the WEO projections than implied by Zipf's law. Mode of access: Internet IMF Working Papers; Working Paper ; No. 2008/011 Full text available on IMF http://elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/001/2008/011/001.2008.issue-011-en.xml IMF e-Library