Gender equality is a crucial component of successful development, yet austerity puts a disproportionate burden on women, increasing their economic vulnerability and affecting societal outcomes. Conversely, economic growth that leads to increased female labor force participation without compensatory investments in social care provisioning and better distribution of caregiving responsibilities will ultimately compromise investment and growth. […]
By Daniella Luna and Samantha Igo The Spring 2024 Global Economic Governance Book Talk Series brought together four distinguished scholars with recent books, spanning India’s economic history to social protection and austerity in International Monetary Fund (IMF) programs. Ashoka Mody opened the series with a discussion on the economic history of India through the lens […]
By Rachel Thrasher On Tuesday, May 7, the Boston University Global Development Policy Center (GDP Center) hosted Alexandros Kentikelenis and Thomas Stubbs, co-authors of the new book, “A Thousand Cuts: Social Protection in the Age of Austerity,” as part of the Spring 2024 Global Economic Governance Initiative Book Talk Series. Kentikelenis is Associate Professor of […]
In 2009, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved reforms to make short-term operations available to low-income countries and reform lending to higher-income countries. Many scholars have noted that the 2008 Global Financial Crisis appeared to loosen austerity measures in favor of more counter-cyclical approaches. However, it remains an open question whether the IMF followed through […]
Amid the devastation of World War ll, the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference convened in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire with the goal of designing an interdependent economic architecture for mutual prosperity. Based on a set of common principles of peace, equity and employment, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and precursors to the World Bank […]
In offering loans to developing countries in exchange for policy reforms, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) typically sets the fiscal parameters within which development occurs. Among the drivers of socio-economic development, an important, yet insufficiently understood, international-level determinant is the spread of IMF austerity policies to developing countries. A new journal article in the Journal for Globalization […]
By Jake Werner A major crisis shakes a society, exerting pressure that aggravates existing cracks in its foundations and forces to the surface flaws that previously went largely unnoticed. A healthy response requires grappling with newly exposed dysfunctions and injustices and taking action to repair and heal the underlying causes. But those seeking such reforms […]
By Rebecca Ray Austerity – tightening government budgets during an economic downturn – has long been discredited as a recovery strategy. Instead of economic growth, it can lead to lower social spending, hurting the poor at the most difficult time and raising inequality thereafter. Furthermore, it can prolong economic downturns, dooming countries to downward cycles instead of recovery, […]
By Maureen Heydt The 2020s were meant to be a decade of achieving shared sustainable development and climate goals, but instead began with a global pandemic, creating the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression and pushing upwards of 124 million people pushed into extreme poverty. 2020 was also one of the hottest years on […]
By Rebecca Ray For many years, researchers have debated the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) use of austerity, or required fiscal budget tightening: how common it is, which borrowers receive such requirements, whether IMF practice has changed after successive financial crises, and what impacts such austerity has had. Two new working papers from the Boston University […]