People who complete the entire Bretton Woods Project audience survey 2012 will automatically enter a prize draw to win a copy of one of these new books on development described below, kindly donated by the publishers and authors. The survey will close on 8 July 2012 and we will pick the winners of the prize draw after that.
The Political Economy of Development: The World Bank, Neoliberalism and Development Research, Kate Bayliss, Ben Fine, Elisa Van Waeyenberge (eds), Pluto Press.
The Political Economy of Development provides tools for gaining an understanding of the World Bank’s role and the evolution of its thinking and activities, applying them across a range of topics. The research, practice and scholarship of development are always set against the backdrop of the World Bank, whose formidable presence shapes both development practice and thinking. This book brings together academics that specialise in different subject areas of development and reviews their findings in the context of the World Bank as knowledge bank, policy-maker and financial institution. The volume offers a compelling contribution to our understanding of development studies and of development itself.
Controlling Institutions: International Organizations and the Global Economy, Randall W. Stone, Cambridge University Press.
How is the United States able to control the IMF with only 17 per cent of the votes? How are the rules of the global economy made? This book shows how a combination of formal and informal rules explains how international organizations really work. Randall W. Stone argues that formal rules apply in ordinary times, while informal power allows leading states to exert control when the stakes are high. International organizations are therefore best understood as equilibrium outcomes that balance the power and interests of the leading state and the member countries. Presenting a new model of institutional design and comparing the IMF, WTO, and EU, Stone argues that institutional variations reflect the distribution of power and interests. He shows that US interests influence the size, terms, and enforcement of IMF programs, and new data, archival documents, and interviews reveal the shortcomings of IMF programs in Mexico, Russia, Korea, Indonesia, and Argentina.
Financial Crisis and Global Imbalances: A Development Perspective, Yilmaz Akyuz, South Centre.
This collection of papers 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. Leading economist Yilmaz Akyuz 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 endeavour in which developing economies have a crucial interest.
