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This paper presents a study that focuses on specific adjustment programs for limited periods and is aimed largely at analyzing the short-run implications of the policy measures. The longer run implications are also discussed whenever relevant, since much of the rationale for policies and many of the beneficial effects on the poor are likely to be realized over time. The study also notes any compensatory targeting measures oriented to the poor, together with their implications for the adjustment efforts and the political viability of the programs. These analyses may provide lessons for improving the design of future adjustment programs. The chapter also summarizes the sample countries and programs; and describes the methodology used in the study. The results of the study suggest that adjustment programs in general have important distributional implications. During the process of adjustment, it is inevitable that some social groups gain while others lose, particularly when adjustment is aimed at a shift in sectoral resource allocation.
This paper was prepared by Bijan B. Aghevli, Division Chief in the international Monetary Fund's Asian Department, and Jorge Marquez-Ruarte, Senior Economist in the Asian Department. In preparing the paper, the authors have relied extensively on the analysis and information provided by the Korean authorities as well as on the work of the Fund staff on Korea during the period under study.
This report comprises three papers written by staff members of the Fund's Research Department on issues arising out of the reports on the international monetary system prepared in 1985 by the Group of Ten (representing the industrial countries participating in the General Arrangements to Borrow) and the intergovernmental Group of Twenty-Four on International Monetary Affairs. These two reports, which appear as appendices to this volume, were transmitted to the Interim Committee of the Fund's Board of Governors and were subsequently discussed by the Fund's Executive Board in early 1986.
Beyond the Horizons: Chipembi School Blazes the Trail for Girls' Education and Empowerment in Zambia is a history of Chipembi School: its role in the evangelizing policies of the Methodist Missionary Society whose Wesleyan branch founded the school in 1912; its development as the leading school for African girls in the colonial period, and the first, and until 1956, the only school to offer secondary education to them. It follows the development of the school after Independence, its initial problems and subsequent successes in academic achievements and agricultural education and production. The book discusses the contribution of the schools' graduates, professionals in many fields, to the development of Zambia, and also documents their humanitarian work. Above all, it is an account written by two Chipembi girls' from the perspective of the girls themselves, illustrating the hardships, the achievements, the fun, the friendships and the faith that sustained so many of them in their years at school and in their later lives.
"Economic reform by Third World governments is usually portrayed as the product of outside pressure, especially from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. This welcome collection provides an important counter-perspective by putting domestic politics at center stage. Miles Kahler demonstrates that international institutions only rarely play an important role."--Orbis' "Joan Nelson and her collaborators have performed a valuable service for those concerned about the politics of reform by bringing together a series of informed and insightful essays that address clearly and concisely the difficult political dilemmas of economic adjustment."--Merilee S. Grindle,Economic Development and Cultural Change
Priests of Prosperity explores the unsung revolutionary campaign to transform postcommunist central banks from command-economy cash cows into Western-style monetary guardians. Juliet Johnson conducted more than 160 interviews in seventeen countries with central bankers, international assistance providers, policymakers, and private-sector finance professionals over the course of fifteen years. She argues that a powerful transnational central banking community concentrated in Western Europe and North America integrated postcommunist central bankers into its network, shaped their ideas about the role of central banks, and helped them develop modern tools of central banking. Johnson’s detailed...
This paper describes methodological issues pertaining to measurement of fiscal impact. The fiscal deficit is, under any circumstances, a crude tool for assessing the impact of fiscal policy on the economy. This paper also analyzes various ways in which the conventional definition of the fiscal deficit is affected by high rates of inflation. It has shown that, as the rate of inflation rises, the picture emerging from the conventional measure may, under certain circumstances, become somewhat blurred since the conventional measure may magnify the size of the fiscal adjustment that a country need. In fact, the size of the debt service that compensates bondholders for the reduction in the real value of their assets arising from inflation should be made explicit so as to indicate that part of the deficit whose impact depends mainly on portfolio decisions regarding the public's demand for government bonds, and on the potential effects of these bonds on the monetary and liquidity conditions of the economy.
The growing integration of capital markets has strengthened incentives for greater international coordination of economic and financial policies. Structural changes in these financial market, however, may have undermined the effectiveness of monetary and fiscal policy and complicated market access by developing countries. These are among the findings of this study of capital flows in the 1970s and the 1980s.
In the 1980s some developing countries adopted orthodox market-oriented policies in response to international economic crises, others experimented with alternative programs, and still others failed to develop coherent adjustment strategies of any sort. Building on the case studies in Economic Crisis and Policy Choice, these essays offer comparative analysis of these divergent experiences with macroeconomic stabilization and structural adjustment. Barbara Stallings and Miles Kahler explore the external pressures on governments. Peter Evans and John Waterbury examine the role of the state in the adjustment process, Evans through the lens of earlier historical experience with economic restructuring, Waterbury by focusing on the politics of privatization. Joan Nelson analyzes the politics of income distribution in the adjustment process, and Haggard and Kaufman investigate the political correlates of inflation and stabilization. A final essay assesses the prospects for combining market-oriented reforms with political democratization.