Chronicles of Debt Crises Foretold

Chowdhury, Anis; Sundaram, Jomo Kwame

doi:10.1111/dech.12786

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Views on contemporary inflation can be divided into three broad categories according to the policy responses proposed for mitigating its effects. Despite the fact that its arguments are based on faulty assumptions (Chowdhury/Sundaram 2023), neoliberal ideology has dominated the field of research on inflation. Conventional research attempts to identify and explain the main causes of price hikes.…”

Section: Views On Inflationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inflated inequality or unequal inflation? A case for sustained ‘two-sided’ austerity in Greece

Missos,

Blunt,

Domenikos

et al. 2024

European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention

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Empirical data are presented on expenditure inequality dynamics in Greece, how they evolved during a period of deep socio-economic crisis, and how they were sustained by inflation. A differentiated approach to expenditure inequalities is applied that reveals the size of contraction of total private expenditure and its sub-categories for different expenditure groups of the population. One of the most important aspects of expenditure inequality in Greece concerns the inability of the widely used measures of dispersion to capture the real adjustment magnitude that occurs during a period of overlapping crises. A close examination of private expenditure enables the distributional effects of contractionary measures in Greece, which are intensified by inflation, to be portrayed as inverted austerity. It is argued that the 2021–2022 inflationary pressures in Greece were a continuation of the policies used to advance the purposes of internal devaluation that had been in effect since at least 2010. The data show that the poor in Greece have suffered unprecedented hardship, and that inequality has risen sharply.

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Section: Views On Inflationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inflated inequality or unequal inflation? A case for sustained ‘two-sided’ austerity in Greece

Missos,

Blunt,

Domenikos

et al. 2024

European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention

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“…Economic slowdowns stemming from pandemic-abatement policies were followed by fiscal crises as a result of rising energy and food prices. The interest rate increases by central banks in the Global North compounded these pressures, leading to increases in debt service requirements for low- and middle-income countries [ 2 , 3 ]. By end-2023, 36 low- and lower-middle income countries were in debt distress or at high risk of it, and many more have brewing debt concerns [ 4 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social protection and the International Monetary Fund: promise versus performance

Kentikelenis,

Stubbs

2024

Global Health

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Background Countries in the Global South are currently facing momentous economic and social challenges, including major debt service problems. As in previous periods of global financial instability, a growing number of countries have turned to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for financial assistance. The organization has a long track-record of advocating for extensive fiscal consolidation—commonly known as ‘austerity’—for its borrowers. However, in recent years, the IMF has announced major initiatives for ensuring that its loans support social spending, thus aiding countries in meeting their development targets and the Sustainable Development Goals. To assess this track record, we collected spending data on 21 loans signed in the 2020–2022 period, including from all their periodic reviews up to August 2023. Results We find that austerity measures remain a core part of the organization’s mandated policies for its borrowers: 15 of the 21 countries studied here experience a decrease in fiscal space over the course of their IMF programs. Against this fiscal backdrop, social spending floors have failed to live up to their promise. There is no streamlined definition of these floors, thus rendering their application haphazard and inconsistent. But even on their own terms, these floors lack ambition: they often do not foresee trajectories of meaningful social spending increases over time, and, when they do, many of these gains are eaten up by soaring inflation. In addition, a third of social spending floors are not implemented—a much lower implementation rate from that for austerity conditions, which the IMF prioritizes. In several instances, where floors are implemented, they are not meaningfully exceeded, thus—in practice—acting as social spending ceilings. Conclusions The IMF’s lending programs are still heavily focused on austerity, and its strategy on social spending has not represented the sea-change that the organization advertised. At best, social spending floors act as damage control for the painful budget cuts: they are instruments of social amelioration, underpinned by principles of targeted assistance for highly disadvantaged groups. Alternative approaches rooted in principles of universalism can be employed to build up durable and resilient social protection systems.

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Post-COVID economic crisis, citizen-state relations, and the Electronic Transactions Levy (E-levy) controversy in Ghana

Asante,

Kumi,

Kodom

2024

World Development Perspectives

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Chronicles of Debt Crises Foretold

Cited by 3 publications

References 27 publications

Inflated inequality or unequal inflation? A case for sustained ‘two-sided’ austerity in Greece

Inflated inequality or unequal inflation? A case for sustained ‘two-sided’ austerity in Greece

Social protection and the International Monetary Fund: promise versus performance

Post-COVID economic crisis, citizen-state relations, and the Electronic Transactions Levy (E-levy) controversy in Ghana

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