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Then and now, an introduction -- Part I. Fake socialism, 1947-1964. An uncertain beginning -- The path not taken -- Nehru's dangerous gamble -- Nehru doubles his bet -- Tagore's unheard song -- Mr. Nehru's tragedy, democracy's first betrayal -- Part II. Violence, 1964-1984.Shastri's brave transition -- Through the ferment, a savior rises -- India has an empress -- Anger meets repression -- An autocratic gamble fails -- Democracy betrays again, deindustrialization begins -- When the violence came home -- Part III. The promise, 1985-2004. A pilot flies into political headwinds -- Rajiv unleashes the gale force of Hindu nationalism -- A all-too-brief moment of sanity -- The promise has a dark underbelly -- No, India does not shine -- Part IV. Hubris, 2005 to the present. As two Indias drift apart, democracy creaks -- Modi pushes the economy off the edge -- Modi breaks India's fractured democracy -- COVID-19 bares the moral decay -- Epilogue : a feasible idealism.
EuroTragedy is an incisive exploration of the tragedy of how the European push for integration was based on illusions and delusions pursued in the face of warnings that the pursuit of unity was based on weak foundations.
Macroeconomic Policies and Poverty goes beyond the traditional literature on poverty, dealing with this critical topic in a technically sophisticated, yet accessible manner. Departing from the conventional method employed in poverty studies, the innovative essays contained in this book enquire into the institutional characteristics of poverty such as the time-pattern of aid, the nature of financial systems, and the political economy of budgetary decisions. This book uses current case studies to examine the crucial idea that periods of crises have a particularly serious effect on poverty. Contributors include Martin Ravallion, Michael Kremer and Robert Townsend --
We estimate consumption dynamics in the G-7 economies, paying particular attention to the possibility of precautionary behavior in the face of uncertainty. We find that in the short run, continued income uncertainty will significantly dampen consumption growth. As such, consumption in the G-7 economies is unlikely to be the engine that revives global growth. Differences in the pace and timing of consumption moderation have implications for the evolution of global imbalances. With the U.S. experiencing a sharper rise in unemployment and, perhaps, more widespread loss of financial wealth than elsewhere in the G-7, the relative rise of the U.S. savings rate is helping narrow global imbalances. But with a likely earlier recovery in the U.S., this narrowing could be short-lived. Moreover, long-term differences- in economic and financial volatility and in demographic structures-have been an important source of the imbalances and could soon reassert their prominence.
From its early post-war catch-up phase, Germany’s formidable export engine has been its consistent driver of growth. But Germany has almost equally consistently run current account surpluses. Exports have powered the dynamic phases and helped emerge from stagnation. Volatile external demand, in turn, has elevated German GDP growth volatility by advanced countries’ standards, keeping domestic consumption growth at surprisingly low levels. As a consequence, despite the size of its economy and important labor market reforms, Germany’s ability to act as global locomotive has been limited. With increasing competition in its traditional areas of manufacturing, a more domestically-driven growth dynamic, especially in the production and delivery of services, will be good for Germany and for the global economy. Absent such an effort, German growth will remain constrained, and Germany will play only a modest role in spurring growth elsewhere.
Increasingly, the consequences of globalization call for the involvement not only of national governments but of the international development community as a whole. Such involvement needs to occur within a comprehensive framework that encompasses stakeholders from government, non-governmental organizations, and businesses acting together in partnership. This requires the leveraging of general aid and country-focused development resources along with encouraging private financing participation. 'International Public Goods' explains different ways that this type of framework might be structured and focuses on different financing strategies that can be developed. It acknowledges the value of country specific efforts while recommending a multi-national approach to addressing problems resulting from globalization. This book evaluates the concepts fundamental to the term ?public goods? and details alternative governance structures including the role of incentives.
Germany has been a central player in discussions on the future architecture of Europe, and has been called on to play a larger role in supporting global and, especially, European recovery from the financial crisis that triggered the Great Recession. This book focuses on the possible economic role of Germany and shows that the quantitative effects of a German fiscal stimulus would be small on the heavily indebted euro area periphery countries that most need the boost. The book finds that Germany itself faces a growth challenge and that efforts to raise its own growth potential are important for Germany, and that more rapid growth of domestic demand will more powerfully stimulate European economic growth through its expanded demand for imports.
We develop a simple information-based model of FDI flows. On the one hand, the abundance of "intangible" capital in specialized industries in the source countries, which presumably generates expertise in screening investment projects in the host countries, enhances FDI flows. On the other hand, host-country corporate-transparency diminishes the value of this expertise, thereby reducing the flow of FDI. Empirical evidence (from a sample of 9 source countries and 13 host countries over the 1980s and 1990s), analyzed in a gravity-equation model, provides support for the theoretical hypotheses. The model also demonstrates that the gains for the host country from FDI (over foreign portfolio investment (FPI)) are reflected in a more efficient size of the stock of domestic capital and its allocation across firms. These gains are shown to depend crucially (and positively) on the degree of competition among FDI investors.
The discussion of global and regional imbalances has put the spotlight on the possible link between current accounts and structural policies. Drawing on standard empirical current account models, the paper finds that the commonly recommended structural factors cannot explain the widening of imbalances prior to the 2008 - 09 crisis. That said, structural factors do help explain some part of long-standing cross-country differences in the current account levels. In particular, countries with stricter credit market regulation, higher taxes on businesses, lower minimum wage (in particular,in slow growing economies) and generous unemployment benefits tend to have higher current account balances than others.
Research work by the IMF’s staff on the effectiveness of the country programs the organization supports, which has long been carried out, has intensified in recent years. IMF analysts have sought to “open up the black box” by more closely examining program design and implementation, as well as how these influence programs’ effectiveness. Their efforts have also focused on identifying the lending, signaling, and monitoring features of the IMF that may affect member countries’ economic performance. This book reports on a large portion of both the new and the continuing research. It concludes that IMF programs work best where domestic politics and institutions permit the timely implementation of the necessary measures and when a country is vulnerable to, but not yet in, a crisis. It points to the need for a wider recognition of the substantial diversity among IMF member countries and for programs to be tailored accordingly while broadly maintaining the IMF’s general principle of uniformity of treatment.