During the great period of globalisation before the First World War, the international economy was based on global trade and global finance with monetary policy largely fixed under the gold standard. After the Second World War, a new international system was designed based upon global trade,...

The International Monetary Fund was primarily established to facilitate the management of a fixed exchange rate regime designed to promote global trade. It did this in the 1950s and 1960s. It was a good idea for its time. That time ended with the floating of exchange rates in the 1970s. Since...

Developing countries in financial difficulties routinely enter into arrangements with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Such arrangements reduce the economic sovereignty of the developing country markedly. This paper analyses this reduction in sovereignty and seeks to assess whether it is...

The Asian economic crisis of 1997 spawned a vast analytical literature and a reconsideration of the international financial architecture. This article seeks a broader perspective on these issues by comparing the causes of the debt crisis of 1982 with those of the Asian crisis. These two crises...

The international financial system has made a major, direct and sustained contribution to global poverty for the past 30 years. It has worsened it. It has done so in two main ways. First, the analytical framework and perspective the International Monetary Fund has brought to its role in...

This paper outlines the contemporary challenges for International Monetary Fund (IMF) reform. The chapter argues that market principles and disciplines have been abrogated systematically by IMF policy makers whenever the unimpeded operation of markets has failed to deliver profits to the...

The US derives enormous economic benefits from issuing the dominant global currency. This exorbitant privilege has been put at risk by the combination of the 2022 sanctions against Russia and new technological developments, specifically Central Bank Digital Currencies. CBDCs promise faster,...

The IMF's track record on developing policy to govern the interaction of developing countries and global capital is not strong. Argentina was an IMF poster-child throughout the 1990s. Its economy imploded in 2001. The Brady Plan provided a resolution of the Latin American debt crisis of the...