Not Your Grandfather’s IMF: Global Crisis, ‘Productive Incoherence’ and Developmental Policy Space (significantly revised)
Abstract
The response by the IMF (and developing country national governments) to the current global financial crisis represents a moment of what I term “productive incoherence” that has displaced the constraining “neoliberal coherence” of the past several decades. Productive incoherence refers to the proliferation of inconsistent and even contradictory strategies and statements by the IMF that to date have not congealed into any sort of new, organized regime. Those who see continuity at the IMF emphasize the reassertion of the IMF’s authority; the reiteration of pro-cyclical policy adjustment; and the maintenance of existing governance patterns within the institution. In contrast, evidence of discontinuity includes a world now populated by increasingly autonomous states in the South; the normalization of capital controls; and Fund conditionality programs that are inconsistent in key respects. In the face of this evidence, it is best to understand the current conjuncture as an “interregnum” that is pregnant with new development possibilities.
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Paper provided by Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst in its series Working Papers with number wp214_revised.
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Date of creation: 2010
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Handle: RePEc:uma:periwp:wp214_revised
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Keywords: Global financial crisis; policy space for development; International Monetary Fund; capital controls; neo-liberal policies and development;Find related papers by JEL classification:
- E65 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Studies of Particular Policy Episodes
- F53 - International Economics - - International Relations and International Political Economy - - - International Agreements and Observance; International Organizations
- O23 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy - - - Fiscal and Monetary Policy in Development
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2010-08-28 (All new papers)
- NEP-CBA-2010-08-28 (Central Banking)
- NEP-MAC-2010-08-28 (Macroeconomics)
- NEP-PKE-2010-08-28 (Post Keynesian Economics)
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