Debt, the IMF, and the World Bank: Sixty Questions, Sixty Answers

Front Cover
NYU Press, 2010 - Business & Economics - 364 pages

Mainstream economists tell us that developing countries will replicate the economic achievements of the rich countries if they implement the correct “free-market”policies. But scholars and activists Toussaint and Millet demonstrate that this is patently false. Drawing on a wealth of detailed evidence, they explain how developed economies have systematically and deliberately exploited the less-developed economies by forcing them into unequal trade and political relationships. Integral to this arrangement are the international economic institutions ostensibly created to safeguard the stability of the global economy—the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank—and the imposition of massive foreign debt on poor countries. The authors explain in simple language, and ample use of graphics, the multiple contours of this exploitative system, its history, and how it continues to function in the present day.
Ultimately, Toussaint and Millet advocate cancellation of all foreign debt for developing countries and provide arguments from a number of perspectives—legal, economic, moral. Presented in an accessible and easily-referenced question and answer format, Debt, the IMF, and the World Bank is an essential tool for the global justice movement.

 

Contents

Abbreviations
10
Why is the term development ambiguous?
19
What are the Millennium Development Goals MDG?
27
10
28
13
30
What are the different kinds of debt
44
What part did the World Bank play in
51
What part did the governments of countries
61
THE STRuCTuRE OF DEVELOPING COuNTRIES DEBT
143
Of what does the external debt of developing countries consist?
145
How has the debt changed since 1970?
150
Do developing countries repay debts?
152
What about the external public debt of developing countries?
155
How are the debtrelated financial flows directed?
161
What about the domestic debt of developing countries?
164
Does Official Development Assistance ODA
197

49
64
THE DEBT CRISIS
71
How did the price of commodities evolve during the last quarter of the twentieth century?
73
What role did the evolution of interest rates play in the 1982 debt crisis?
75
Are the World Bank the IMF and private banks somehow responsible for the debt crisis?
79
How did creditors respond to the debt crisis?
82
Are there any similarities with the 2007 subprime crisis?
88
THE IMF THE WORLD BANk
93
AND THE LOGIC OF STRuCTuRAL ADJuSTMENT 93 16 How does the IMF function?
95
What are the shortterm or shock measures imposed by structural adjustment and what are their consequences?
106
What are the longterm or structural measures imposed by structural adjustment and what are their consequences?
109
What is the impact of the IMFWorld Bank logic on the world food crisis of 2007?
119
THE PARIS CLuB AND THE WTO
125
What is the Paris Club?
127
Are all the developing countries treated in the same way by the Paris Club?
131
What is undermining the Paris Club?
135
What is the role of the World Trade Organization WTO?
138
Is microcredit a solution to the excessive debt
204
What is NEPAD?
211
Is it impossible to cancel debt?
217
Why do the governments of the South
228
What are the moral arguments in favor of canceling
239
What are the legal arguments in favor of canceling
246
What are the environmental arguments in favor
254
Would canceling the debt of developing countries
269
Will canceling the debt help reinforce
276
What are the alternatives for human development
287
If and when the debt is canceled how can a new round
302
Can the developing countries external public debt
315
How did the international campaign
321
The 145 Developing Countries in 2008
329
Notes
347
Copyright

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About the author (2010)

éric Toussaint, a doctor in political science, is president of the Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt, CADTM Belgium. He is author of A Diagnosis of Emerging Global Crisis and Alternatives and The World Bank: A Critical Primer, among other books.

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