Liberalization, Financial Instability and Economic Development
About the book: Weighing up the costs and benefits of economic interdependence in a finance-driven world, this book argues that globalization, understood and promoted as absolute freedom for all forms of capital, has been oversold to the Global South, and that the South should be as selective about globalization as the North. The book challenges the orthodoxy on the link between financial deepening and economic growth, as well as that between the efficiency of financial markets and the benefits of liberalization. Ultimately, the author urges developing countries to control capital flows and asset bubbles, preventing financial fragility and crises, and recommends regional policy options for managing capital flows and exchange rates.
Financial Crisis and Global Imbalances: A Development Perspective
About the book: This book examines – from a standpoint of promoting stability and growth in developing countries – key policy lessons to be drawn from the devastating global economic crisis of 2008-09. In this collection of papers on the 2008-09 Great Recession and its implications, leading economist Yılmaz Akyüz underlines the need for economic restructuring along the above lines with a view to more effective crisis prevention and intervention. Given their vulnerability to shocks and limited capacity to respond, he says, this reform process is an endeavor in which developing economies have a crucial interest.
Internationalization of Finance and Changing Vulnerabilities in Emerging and Developing Economies: The Case of Malaysia
Developing countries have become more closely integrated to the unstable international financial system in recent years. The traditional cross-border financial and trade linkages been deepened; but also the foreign presence in their domestic credit, bond, equity and property markets has reached unprecedented levels. New channels have thus emerged for the transmission of financial shocks from global boom-bust cycles. Almost all emerging and developing economies are now vulnerable to instability and shocks originating from the global financial system. (more…)
South Centre Statements on Sovereign Debt Restructuring Processes
The following are two Statements presented by the South Centre on Options for moving forward and Crisis Resolution & International Debt Workout Mechanisms for a multilateral legal framework for sovereign debt restructuring processes. (more…)
Internationalization of Finance and Changing Vulnerabilities in Emerging and Developing Economies
After a series of crises with severe economic and social consequences in the 1990s and early 2000s, emerging and developing economies (EDEs) have become even more closely integrated into what is widely recognized as an inherently unstable international financial system. Both policies in these countries and a highly accommodating global financial environment have played a role. Not only have their traditional cross-border linkages been deepened and external balance sheets expanded rapidly, but also foreign presence in their domestic credit, bond, equity and property markets has reached unprecedented levels. (more…)
Statement to the Ministerial Meeting of the Group of 24, Washington DC
Weak and uncertain global economic conditions
Before the world economy has been able to fully recover from the crisis that began more than five years ago, there is a widespread fear that we may be poised for yet another crisis, this time in emerging economies. (more…)
Crisis Mismanagement in the United States and Europe: Impact on Developing Countries and Longer-Term Consequences
There are two major failings in policy interventions in the crisis in the US and Europe: the reluctance to remove the debt overhang through timely, orderly and comprehensive restructuring and the shift to fiscal austerity after an initial reflation. These have resulted in excessive reliance on monetary means with central banks entering uncharted policy waters, including zero-bound interest rates and the acquisition of long-term public and private bonds. (more…)
Waving Or Drowning: Developing Countries After The Financial Crisis
Not only has the “Great Recession” led to a “Great Slowdown” in developing countries, but also their longer-term growth prospects are clouded by global structural imbalances and fragilities that culminated in the current crisis. (more…)
In recent years financial policies in both industrial and developing countries have put increased emphasis on the market mechanism. Liberalization was partly a response to developments in the financial markets themselves: as these markets innovated to get round the restrictions placed on them, governments chose to throw in the towel. More important, however, governments embraced liberalization as a doctrine. (more…)
The State of the World Economy – South Centre Statement to the UN High Level Thematic Debate on the State of the World Economy.
The South Centre’s Chief Economist, Dr. Yilmaz Akyüz, took part as a speaker at the UN General Assembly’s two-day Thematic Debate on the State of the World Economy, held in New York on 17-18 May 2012. Below is the statement he presented to one of the four roundtables at the conference. (more…)
Statement to the UN High Level Thematic Debate on the State Of the World Economy, New York
1. Global economic conditions continue to have a strong bearing on production, trade and investment in developing economies (DEs). In this respect the current landscape is not very encouraging. After three years of recovery the world economy still remains highly fragile. (more…)
Summary overview of the recent development of the agenda of financial reform.
A cursory read of the FSB’s report on progress in the implementation of G20’s reform agenda indicates how vast the agenda has become. Agreement on the international agenda is being accompanied by measures implementing this agreement at national level and at the level of the EU. (more…)
About the book: Weighing up the costs and benefits of economic interdependence in a finance-driven world, this book argues that globalization, understood and promoted as absolute freedom for all forms of capital, has been oversold to the Global South, and that the South should be as selective about globalization as the North. The book challenges the orthodoxy on the link between financial deepening and economic growth, as well as that between the efficiency of financial markets and the benefits of liberalization. Ultimately, the author urges developing countries to control capital flows and asset bubbles, preventing financial fragility and crises, and recommends regional policy options for managing capital flows and exchange rates.