Question

Economist and Nobel Laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz argues that the IMF has failed its mission to secure global economic stability. He identifies the reasons for this failure with changes in the IMF’s mission and economic policies. In his role as Senior Vice President and Chief Economist at the World Bank in the late 1990s, Stiglitz was privy to the policies and failures of the IMF. In his book, Globalization and Its Discontents, Stiglitz lays out an argument for why the IMF has failed in its mission to ensure global economic stability. Stiglitz argues that the IMF’s policies not only do not work, but often make matters worse for the countries in crisis. He highlights several problematic policies:

Capital market liberalization. The IMF pressures countries that petition for IMF loans to open their markets to outside investment capital. Rather than help matters, this approach often makes matters worse as it destabilizes the economy of the country as well as the global economy. Investors may invest huge sums in a country only to pull those investments at a moment’s notice, causing acute economic crises.

Latin America as the template. Stiglitz says that many of the the ideas of the “Washington Consensus” were based on the experience with Latin America. The economic growth in these countries had not been sustained, governments had let budgets run out of control, and loose monetary policy had led to rampant inflation. The belief of the Washington Consensus was that this had happened as a result of excessive government intervention in the economy. So, if government intervention was the problem, then government intervention should be limited. The Washington Consensus pushed for policies such as capital market liberalization. Stiglitz notes that even if this approach was appropriate for some Latin American countries, it did not make sense to apply this policy blindly to other countries in very different situations where this kind of policy might make matters much worse.

Insensitivity to strength of local markets. Stiglitz says that the IMF policy forcing rapid trade liberalization has not only not worked, but does not follow lessons learned from history. He notes the cases of the U.S. and Japan. Both countries had trade protection policies in place until their industries were strong enough to compete in a global market. However, IMF policies forcing trade liberalization on a developing country where industries are not strong enough can actually cause more harm. Local industries could not compete, and rising interest rates made job creation virtually impossible. Says Stiglitz, “Liberalization has, thus, too often, not been followed by the promised growth, but my increased misery.”

Taxation without Representation. Stiglitz notes that even though the IMF is a public institution, funded by money from taxpayers around the world, it is not held accountable to the interests of these taxpayers. He identifies the problem of governance as one of the prime “underlying factors” for problems with the IMF.   (Center on Law & Globalization)

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Identify a criticism made by Joseph Stiglitz in regards to the IMF, World Bank, or globalization. In your response, provide the following:

Summarize Stiglitz's criticism

Answer 1