By Katie Gallogly-Swan On Thursday, July 15, the Boston University Global Development Policy (GDP) Center and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) hosted a webinar discussion to explore the recently announced “Build Back Better World’” (B3W) Partnership from the G7, billed as a “Green Marshall Plan” to generate improved access to financing […]
On July 9-10, 2021, the Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors (FMCBGs) of the G20 gathered in Venice, Italy for their third official meeting under the Italian G20 Presidency. The communique, or readout, summarizes the discussions and agreements the FMCBGs came to during the meeting. While acknowledging that the overall global outlook has improved since […]
By Rebecca Ray The triple crisis of public health, the global economy, and climate change are looming for the world, but focusing their havoc on developing countries in particular. While low and middle-income countries (LMICs) have faced wave after wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic also made foreign capital and hard currency scarce, necessitating […]
By Bridgette Lang Though 2020 was a year of economic contraction around the world, it was also a year of continued growth and enlargement for the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in Latin America. Additionally, the Chinese share of regional exports grew, as did China’s energy sector involvement […]
Editor’s Note: The following is a testimony delivered by Dr. Rebecca Ray to the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission hearing on China in Latin American and the Caribbean on May 20, 2021. To Chairs Bartholomew and Scissors, to the Commission, good morning. My name is Rebecca Ray. I’m a development economist and senior researcher […]
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 […]
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, a new working paper focuses on an important, yet insufficiently understood, international-level determinant: the spread of austerity policies to the developing world by the […]
The Boston University Global Development Policy (GDP) Center is a University-wide center in partnership with the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies. The GDP Center’s mission is to advance policy-oriented research for financial stability, human well-being and environmental sustainability. The Global China Initiative (GCI) at the GDP Center maintains a suite of five interactive […]