scholarly journals Trends in the transformation of Bretton-Wood organizations in global space

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (8) ◽  
pp. 72-85
Author(s):  
Viktoriia KOLOSOVA ◽  
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
Financial Stability ◽  
Social Situation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Bretton Woods ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Imf

The article highlights the historical aspects and preconditions for the creation of the International Monetary Fund (the IMF) and the World Bank, which since 1944 have been the most influential international financial organizations and have played the role of the world's largest creditors. The essence of the transformations of their activity caused by the phenomena of the new economic reality is revealed. The solution to the problems of financial stability on a global scale in the postwar period by the United States and the newly created the IMF was to peg national currencies to the US dollar in the Fund's arbitration. The events related to the crisis of the Bretton Woods system of single fixed exchange rates and the irreversible disruptions in the world circulation of oil and its derivatives in the 1970s were important reasons for changing the principles of the world monetary and financial system towards the introduction of free exchange. At the same time, due to the intensification of domestic trade and investment, there were abrupt outpacing transformations of the economies of the south-eastern part of the Asian continent. Following the irreversible events involving the collapse of the socialist camp, support for reform programs in transition economies has been added to the IMF's targets. The activities of the World Bank under the impact of these total changes were also significantly renewed. Further, the IMF and the World Bank began to work more closely, integrating anti-crisis approaches and measures, while remaining a universally recognized instrument of stabilization in the global dimension. The activities of the Bretton Woods organizations are aimed at assisting the governments of developing countries in implementing market economic policies to protect the rights of all forms of ownership, modernize institutional structures, achieve financial balance, and improve the social situation of all segments of the population. It is concluded that in order to ensure sustainable development, the strategic renewal of the IMF and the World Bank provides for the expansion of quotas to support structural reform programs, improve the allocation of credit and financial resources, support opportunities to meet the needs of socio-economic systems, develop human capital and efforts for solving macroeconomic problems, etc. The directions of impact of these international financial institutions on solving actual problems concerning climate change, displays of corruption, overcoming inequality, resistance to threats of destabilization, struggle against a pandemic of a coronavirus disease of COVID-19 are defined.

Can Effective Industrial Restructuring be Compatible with Market- Oriented Structural Adjustment Policies? The Evidence from Turkey

1995 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 51-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fikret Şenses
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Import Substitution ◽  
Bretton Woods ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Adjustment Program ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The World ◽  
Bretton Woods Institutions ◽  
The Imf

One of the main objectives of the Stabilization and Structural Adjustment Program (SSAP) introduced in Turkey in January 1980 was to transform the industrial trade strategy from archetypal import-substitution to export-orientation and to attain a higher level of integration with the international economy through market-based policies. International financial institutions like the IMF and, in particular, the World Bank have been closely involved in this process. Apart from a number of stand-by agreements with the IMF, Turkey received five successive structural adjustment loans from the World Bank during 1980-84 with their conditionality extending into a wide range of spheres like import liberalization, export promotion, and financial liberalization. Not only was Turkey one of the first to conclude such agreements with the World Bank, it was also identified as one of the countries complying with their provisions with “low slippage”.3 Even when there were no formal agreements, successive governments since 1980 have had very close and amicable relations with both of these Bretton Woods institutions.

Book Reviews

2014 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 234-236
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
International Monetary Fund ◽  
Financial Stability ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Financial History ◽  
Bretton Woods ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Research Associate ◽  
The World ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

Richard N. Cooper of Harvard University reviews, “The Bretton Woods Transcripts” by Kurt Schuler and Andrew Rosenberg. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: “Presents the verbatim record of meetings of the Bretton Woods Conference, which established the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Transcripts focus on Commission I—the International Monetary Fund; the committees of Commission I; and Commissions II and III—the World Bank and other means of cooperation. Schuler is an economist in the Office of International Affairs at the U.S. Department of the Treasury and Senior Fellow in Financial History at the Center for Financial Stability. Rosenberg is a research associate at the Center for Financial Stability.”

scholarly journals The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Case of Remittance Recipient Countries

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 109-128
Author(s):  
Ksenia Bondarenko ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Financial Support ◽  
Gdp Growth ◽  
Potential Contribution ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Imf

The advent of the new coronavirus hinders the fragile welfare of migrant workers. Those economic sectors with a large migrant workforce appear to be those hit hardest during the lockdown, resulting in surge in migrant unemployment and a plunge in the volume of remittances. This has become yet another factor putting pressure on the gross domestic product (GDP) growth, balance of payments, and budgets of countries that are net remittance recipients, while also triggering rising poverty levels. This paper evaluates the impact of the current pandemic (and respective economic downturn) on remittance inflows to recipient countries and tackles the potential contribution that international financial institutions could make to alleviate the adverse economic aftermath. In Central Asia and Southern Caucuses (except Azerbaijan) emergency financing granted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank covers 9–20% of the overall size of the annual remittances received. This financial support could be rendered insufficient due to the sharp decrease in the volume of remittances, decline in tourism revenue, and weakening economic activity, while the poor quality of state institutions may hinder the efficient distribution of accumulated resources. In Europe, the IMF and the World Bank provided approximately $7.7 billion in financing to low- and middle-income countries for such purposes as economic stabilization, support for population welfare, and financing of internal/external deficit, of which $5 billion is represented by the new Ukraine-IMF Stand-By Agreement. With the exception of Ukraine, Macedonia, and Bulgaria (the latter having received no loans/grants so far), the cover index for European remittance-recipients stands within a range of 2–18% over 2019 remittance inflows.Therefore, it is most feasible that the current 2020 GDP growth forecasts made by the IMF, the World Bank, and local governments are inaccurate in the light of the insufficient financial support provided by international financial organizations. Additional pressure on the GDP figures might stem from further extension and/or toughening of the lockdown period, as well as from uncertainty regarding the revival of regular business activity and the timeline for resuming migrant remittances.

The Bretton Woods Institutions and Economic Reform in Africa

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adeoye O. Akinola
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
World Bank ◽  
African Country ◽  
Macroeconomic Performance ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Bretton Woods ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
Bretton Woods Institutions ◽  
The Impact

The activities of International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (together comprising the Bretton Woods Institutions) in Africa have continued to generate questions about the impact of economic reforms on democratization and economic growth. The Bretton Woods Institutions strongly believe that economic growth contributes significantly to poverty alleviation efforts and hence generates improvements in living standards, particularly in developing countries, including those in Africa. In the mid-1980s, as many African countries struggled to service their external debts and qualify for additional credit to provide services to their citizens and promote economic growth and development, the World Bank and the IMF offered to help them. However, the Bretton Woods Institutions conditioned their assistance on the willingness of each African country to undertake necessary structural reforms, which included a reduction in the public sector, devaluation of the national currency, deregulation of the foreign trade sector, and more reliance on markets for the allocation of resources. These aid programs, which came to be known as Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) consisted of conditional lending to African countries in economic crisis. At this time, the World Bank felt that the effectiveness of its development programs in Africa and other regions of the world was being undermined by bloated and dysfunctional bureaucratic structures and governmental systems that were hostile to the market generally and entrepreneurship in particular. The World Bank’s desire to condition the extension of credit to African countries on institutional reforms was supposedly to improve bureaucratic efficiency, as well as economic performance, and enhance the effectiveness of the World Bank’s projects in these countries. Thus, the IMF and the World Bank emerged in the 1990s as major players in efforts to improve economic growth and development in Africa. The SAPs were expected to improve macroeconomic performance, produce rapid economic growth, achieve economic diversification, and provide each African country with the resources that it needed to confront poverty and improve national living standards. In fact, in 1994, the World Bank expressed a lot of optimism about the impact of SAPs on African economies. However, many critics have argued that SAPs had virtually no positive impact on the macroeconomic performance of African economies and, instead, created a series of internal political and economic contradictions that have continued to haunt the continent to this day. As a result, critics say, many countries that implemented SAPs continue to suffer from high levels of poverty and became more dependent on external financial resources (such as loans, development aid, and food aid) than before they got involved with the Bretton Woods Institutions and their adjustment programs.

Theme I: Economy, Prosperity, and Social Justice

2003 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 849-871
Author(s):  
Leopold Specht ◽  
Ratna Kapur ◽  
Balakrishnan Rajagopal ◽  
Chantal Thomas ◽  
David M. Trubek
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Institutional Frameworks ◽  
The World ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

In this presentation I shall describe (i) a process of expanding the institutional frameworks of economic and social development that apply on a global scale principles found in the Anglo-American world; (ii) the reinterpretation of these institutional frameworks by ascribing to them a narrow – to a certain extent ideological – meaning which does not reflect the variety of meanings carried by those institutions in the Anglo-American world; and (iii) the undermining of sovereign decision-making by states in order to regulate economies and social systems in a manner that does not pose limitations to the expansion of the institutional framework as described above. This hegemonic programme of ‘globalization’ is at the heart of policies promoted by the United States and such international institutions as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

scholarly journals Colonialism to Neo-Colonialism: The Chinese Use of Foreign Direct Investment and the Case of Pakistan

2021 ◽  
Vol VI (IV) ◽  
pp. 15-27
Author(s):  
Rao Raza Hashim ◽  
Bushra Arfeen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Direct Investment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Bretton Woods ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Bretton Woods Institutions ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Case Based

The practice of neo-colonialism was initially introduced by the United States through the establishment of institutions like the Bretton Woods Institutions (IMF and World Bank) and continuing the legacy, China soon took over and had been using FDI to further its neo-colonial agenda in various parts of the world, including Pakistan. This research explores the history of colonization in the Sub-Continent and traces the origins of neo-colonization with a focus of the United States as a pioneer of the practice and China as the contemporary neo-colonizer. The research traces the transition from colonialism to neo-colonialism and examines the case of Pakistan as a victim of neo-colonialism, presenting the case based on evidence. The paper concludes that neo-colonialism is indeed colonialism with a changed outlook and proposes certain recommendations for Pakistan to minimize the impact of Chinese colonialism.

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