This summer, in came the bear and out went the bull as stock markets plummeted, forcing people across the globe to recognize the severity of the recent economic crisis.

In turn, international leaders have looked to Harvard faculty for advice on how to solve the problem.

Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID), has been called in by representatives from Central America, South America, Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia.

"The issue is explaining the crisis and what kind of policy response they should take," Sachs said.

One central tenet of Sachs' advice has been to reject policy formulated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a group of 182 countries whose purpose is to promote global financial stability through such activities as money lending and financial policy review.

"I'm very unhappy with the approach of the IMF," Sachs said. " In general, if [the countries I advise] go for an IMF program, I make sure the program is a good as possible. Sometimes, they don't see any alternative because of the short-term funds. But the amount is not worth the result."

On the other side of the IMF debate is Marshall I. Goldman, assistant director of the Davis Center for Russian Studies, who has testified before Congress and debriefed the National Security Council before President Clinton's Moscow trip.

"Everyone recognizes that the IMF isn't perfect," he said. "If you have a 10-alarm fire, you don't close the one firehouse you have because it's made some mistakes."

Congress called on Goldman to give his opinion on whether the United States should allocate funds for the IMF.

"We should give support for agriculture and some of the regions [in Russia]," Goldman said.

Yet, he warned, "It has to be done carefully."

Goldman said scholars at the Davis Center have often predicted changes in the market when academics elsewhere failed to spot the warning signs.

"Some analyses here have been more on target then those elsewhere in the university and elsewhere in the country. There were some people in the other parts of the University who were optimists about the way the reforms were going," Goldman said. "Some of us here were more skeptical of what was happening and felt that some of the things that were being done were wrong. We were proved to be correct."

Richard Pipes, Baird professor of history emeritus and a member of the Davis Center Executive Committee, traveled with Goldman to Washington to speak to Congressional members.

Pipes echoes Sachs' laissez-faire approach.