Debt Relief for Low-Income Countries: Arbitration as the Alternative to Present, Unsuccessful Debt Strategies

Debt reduction, International insolvency, International financial architecture, HIPC initiative

Looking a Gift Horse in the Mouth: Analysing Donors’ Aid Statistics

Claiming that its definition of Official Development Assistance (ODA) has remained unchanged, the OECD concedes changes in interpretation broadening the concept’s scope. Discontinuities, inconsistencies in recording, items openly doubted to be ODA by the OECD, even expenditures officially declared not to satisfy the OECD’s own criteria have boosted ODA volumes considerably. In 1994 by nearly 50 per cent, as OECD sources show. Shares of ‘broadened’ ODA roughly doubled between 1989 and 1994 - a disturbing trend concealing decreases of proper aid to development. Independent auditing of aid statistics and some fundamental changes of aid practices are proposed

Historia de dos ciudades: Atenas y Buenos Aires

Argentina and Greece were victims of neoliberal policy: they liberalized, deregulated and quit their own monetary and exchange rate policy. Both were presented as successful until the crisis; the International Monetary Fund and the European Union are extremely guilty of the crisis. However, Argentina enjoyed better conditions to get out of the crisis and to defend the welfare of its people until a new government fundamentally changed policies. Although Greece had the advantage of maintaining its own jurisdiction, the European Union torpedoed that prerrogative.Argentina y Grecia fueron víctimas del neoliberalismo: liberalizaron, desregularon, y renunciaron a una política monetaria y cambiaria propia. Hasta el estallido de sus crisis, ambos países fueron presentados como exitosos;  en los dos casos, el Fondo Monetario Internacional y sobre todo la Unión Europea en Grecia, tuvieron gran culpa de la crisis. Sin embargo, Argentina gozó de mejores condiciones para salir de ella y defender el bienestar de su pueblo, hasta que un nuevo gobierno cambió radicalmente las políticas. Y aunque Grecia tuvo la ventaja de mantener su propia jurisdicción, la Unión Europea torpedeó esa prerrogativa

Neoliberalism and global capital mobility: a necessary reconsideration of textbook trade theory

Textbook theory ignores capital flows: trade determines exchange rates and specialisation. Approaches taking the effects of capital movements adequately into account are needed, and a new theory of economic policy including measures to protect the real economy from external volatility. Equilibrating textbook mechanisms cannot work unless trade-caused surpluses and deficits set exchange rates. To allow orthodox trade theory to work one must hinder capital flows from destroying its very basis, which the IMF and wrong regulatory decisions have done, penalising production and trade. A new, real economy based theory is proposed, a Neoclassical agenda of controlling capital flows and speculation

Las instituciones de Bretton Woods y las crisis monetarias y financieras

En opinión del autor, las instituciones de Bretton Woods (IBW) lejos de contribuir a evitar las crisis, más bien las han fomentado. El BIRF, aun siendo consciente de los graves problemas de deuda que aquejaban a los países en vías de desarrollo, los alentó a endeudarse en el Euromercado, lo que inició un esquema de Ponzi. En un principio, en 1982, las IBW pensaron que no existía crisis alguna. Con el tiempo, y tras reconocer su error, utilizaron estas crisis para aumentar su importancia. Tras años de errores y retrasos que causaron importantes daños a las economías deudoras, finalmente reconocieron la necesidad de aplicar un plan para reducir la deuda. En lugar del Mecanismo de Reestructuración de la Deuda Soberana (MRDS) del FMI sería necesario aplicar procedimientos equitativos y eficientes para la insolvencia soberana basadas en la experiencia de la insolvencia municipal en EE UU

Differences between Inequalities and Unequal Exchange: Comments on the Papers by Chaves and Köhler

Köhler's critique of global wages, where he presents the concept of productivity with great clarity, combines very well with Chaves' presentation of Köhler's model of Unequal Exchange (UE). A brief and solid common position emerges. As I wrote that "the dimension of non-equivalence in a strict, logical sense" can only be shown by comparing real wages, I fully second Köhler's use of Purchase Power Parity (PPP)-data. In the 1980s, I explicitly referred to the research on PPP comparisons. Therefore I am glad he taps the progress made by PPP-research. Nevertheless, Köhler's model does not explain UE.Unequal Exchange, Purchase Power Parity, Exchange Rates