ISSN (Print) - 0012-9976 | ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

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The Future of the International Monetary Fund

Are our international financial institutions fit for the future? This is a question being asked at the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund in Marrakesh. If one wants to think deeply about the IMF’s future, one need to go no further than to consider its past. Those assembled at Bretton Woods in 1944 were haunted by the memory of the beggar-thy-neighbour policies that contributed to the Great Depression and the march towards war. But much has passed since and ambition has been lost. Here are five things it could do today to make our international financial system better suited for an age of global shocks and crises, more symmetrical and better able to drive financial flows towards development.

 

Role of International Financial Institutions in Pandemic Treaty

The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed the global economy into a multisectoral crisis. The situation demanded that nation states respond swiftly by formulating funding mechanisms. However, most economies lacked adequate funds for the pandemic response, which led to the international financial institutions’ involvement in the response and recovery operations. This article delves into the various measures taken by the IFIs during the pandemic by inspecting them through a theoretical lens of liberal institutionalism, which emphasises collective and coordinated action.

IMF—Doubling the Dose of Austerity

Evidence from Ghana and reports from Sri Lanka indicate that the International Monetary Fund has introduced a new condition—reduction through the restructuring of domestic sovereign debt—into its adjustment toolkit for countries facing external debt stress. This tendency to blur the distinction between domestic and external debt has major implications, and amounts to imposing measures that enforce a new and additional form of debilitating austerity on these countries.

Era of Services Sector Globalisation?

The diminishing role of merchandise trade calls for a greater focus on services.

Global Food Crisis

Large grain stocks hold the key to greater food security.

Another Global Debt Crisis

When multiple crises confront global leaders, some yet-brewing ones tend to be ignored. One such is an(other) imminent external debt crisis in developing countries, which, as in the case of the COVID-19 crisis, is likely to be prolonged with long-term spillovers. However, while most observers admit that another external debt crisis is imminent, a commitment to find a lasting solution is absent. Not because the elements of such a solution are not obvious. With the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine invasion having made this round of the debt crisis even more difficult to resolve, there is little option but to resort to a package that includes official debt write-offs, large private creditor haircuts and the channelling of cheap liquidity to less developed countries through mechanisms like enhanced Special Drawing Rights issues.

Technology Diffusion through Foreign Direct Investment

This study examines technology diffusion resulting from foreign direct investment in the domestic manufacturing sector in India, by employing unit-level panel data from 2000 to 2007, covering all medium- and large-size manufacturing enterprises. The attempt is to empirically capture evidence of FDI technology spillover effects through two key mechanisms: horizontal spillover and vertical spillover. Vertical spillover effects can be further divided into backward linkages and forward linkages. Technology diffusion can also be the result of both short- and long-term spillover effects.

 

Rollback of Market Economics

Industrial policy has been rehabilitated globally despite the ideological bias.

 

The Lost Decades

The government must reimagine the fundamentals of the economy in favour of equality.

 

Pandemic in the Eyes of the World Bank and the IMF

A damning critique does not allow India to remain self-complacent on the economic and health fronts.

 

Trade War and Global Economic Architecture

The recent decision of the United States to impose punitive tariffs on imports from China and the European Union, and the retaliation of these trade partners in tandem, is of concern to the global community. In analysing these contemporary events, it is argued that the genesis of the trade war can potentially be traced to the piling up of global imbalances, and the failure of the global financial institutions or fora—like the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund—to address such imbalances. In such a context, whether the emerging economies have the ability to influence the course and outcomes of the current trade war, and whether this trade war can generate the possibility of reform of the international institutions are explored here.

IMF's Autocritique of Neo-liberalism?

In a recent article published in Finance and Development, an International Monetary Fund magazine, three economists have critically evaluated the policies the IMF promotes. They acknowledge evidence that suggests that economic growth under neo-liberalism is difficult to sustain, that it leads to an increase in inequality, and that continuing inequality is harmful for sustainable (or continuing) growth.

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