Good-bye, Great Britain

Good-bye, Great Britain PDF Author: Kathleen Burk
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300057288
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
In this authoritative and gripping book--the first full account of the 1976 International Monetary Fund crisis--Kathleen Burk and Alec Cairncross peel back the surface of the most searing economic crisis of postwar Britain to reveal its historical roots and contemporary context. During the spring of 1976, the plummeting value of the British pound against the U.S. dollar triggered a traumatic economic and political crisis. International confidence in the pound collapsed; an article in the Wall Street Journal, headlined "Good-bye, Great Britain," urged investors to get out of sterling. Refused aid by the London and New York markets, the Labour Government under Prime Minister James Callaghan was forced to turn for help to the IMF--a highly unusual move for a developed Western economy. Fearing that the economic crisis would drive Britain into a left-wing siege economy which would endanger NATO and the EEC, the United States and Germany used the IMF loan as a means to force Britain to make major domestic policy changes; when the IMF mission arrived in London in November 1976, it was announced that the price for the loan included deep cuts in domestic spending. Burk and Cairncross uncover the maneuvers of the Labour Government to evade IMF conditions. They also examine underlying economic factors, the political agenda, the rise of monetarist ideas, and the Keynesian response. Juxtaposing narrative with analysis, they provide surprising answers to critical questions and reveal how the breakdown of the post-war consensus on the macroeconomic management paved the way for the triumph of Thatcherism.

Good-bye, Great Britain

Good-bye, Great Britain PDF Author: Kathleen Burk
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300057288
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 298

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this authoritative and gripping book--the first full account of the 1976 International Monetary Fund crisis--Kathleen Burk and Alec Cairncross peel back the surface of the most searing economic crisis of postwar Britain to reveal its historical roots and contemporary context. During the spring of 1976, the plummeting value of the British pound against the U.S. dollar triggered a traumatic economic and political crisis. International confidence in the pound collapsed; an article in the Wall Street Journal, headlined "Good-bye, Great Britain," urged investors to get out of sterling. Refused aid by the London and New York markets, the Labour Government under Prime Minister James Callaghan was forced to turn for help to the IMF--a highly unusual move for a developed Western economy. Fearing that the economic crisis would drive Britain into a left-wing siege economy which would endanger NATO and the EEC, the United States and Germany used the IMF loan as a means to force Britain to make major domestic policy changes; when the IMF mission arrived in London in November 1976, it was announced that the price for the loan included deep cuts in domestic spending. Burk and Cairncross uncover the maneuvers of the Labour Government to evade IMF conditions. They also examine underlying economic factors, the political agenda, the rise of monetarist ideas, and the Keynesian response. Juxtaposing narrative with analysis, they provide surprising answers to critical questions and reveal how the breakdown of the post-war consensus on the macroeconomic management paved the way for the triumph of Thatcherism.

The IMF Crisis of 1976 and British Politics

The IMF Crisis of 1976 and British Politics PDF Author: Kevin Hickson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0857713450
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
The 1976 IMF crisis was a seminal event in modern British political and economic history. The seeds of the crisis were sown by the huge OPEC oil price shocks of 1972-3 leading to the potential meltdown of Britain's already weakened economy and seemingly confirming Britain's headlong decline as a major political and economic power. The government was seen as going 'cap in hand' to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to head off disaster - an image which became a long-lasting political icon. Kevin Hickson has mined vital original source material, including interviews with leading players, to probe government economic thought and practice. He questions much received wisdom, especially that the crisis caused a basic shift to monetarist orthodoxy and right-wing economic liberalism - commonly known as 'Thatcherism' - and embraced by successive governments including New Labour.

The British Labour Government and the 1976 IMF Crisis

The British Labour Government and the 1976 IMF Crisis PDF Author: M. Harmon
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230376258
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
The British Labour Government and the 1976 IMF Crisis examines the external pressures vis-à -vis British economic policy that culminated in the 1976 UK-IMF crisis. The postwar development of IMF loan conditionality is reviewed as well as the growing incompatibility after 1974 between the Government's domestic political imperatives and Britain's external economic constraints that led to the crisis. More generally, the case study demonstrates the coercive and constraining nature of 'international cooperation' in contemporary international relations.

Regulatory Cycles: Revisiting the Political Economy of Financial Crises

Regulatory Cycles: Revisiting the Political Economy of Financial Crises PDF Author: Jihad Dagher
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1484337743
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 89

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Book Description
Financial crises are traditionally analyzed as purely economic phenomena. The political economy of financial booms and busts remains both under-emphasized and limited to isolated episodes. This paper examines the political economy of financial policy during ten of the most infamous financial booms and busts since the 18th century, and presents consistent evidence of pro-cyclical regulatory policies by governments. Financial booms, and risk-taking during these episodes, were often amplified by political regulatory stimuli, credit subsidies, and an increasing light-touch approach to financial supervision. The regulatory backlash that ensues from financial crises can only be understood in the context of the deep political ramifications of these crises. Post-crisis regulations do not always survive the following boom. The interplay between politics and financial policy over these cycles deserves further attention. History suggests that politics can be the undoing of macro-prudential regulations.

Unholy Trinity

Unholy Trinity PDF Author: Richard Peet
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 1848137966
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 438

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Book Description
Who really runs the global economy? Who benefits most from it? The answer is a triad of 'governance institutions' - The IMF, the World Bank and the WTO. Globalization massively increased the power of these institutions and they drastically affected the livelihoods of peoples across the world. Yet they operate undemocratically and aggressively promote a particular kind of neoliberal capitalism. Under the 'Washington Consensus' they proposed, poverty was to be ended by increasing inequality. This new edition of Unholy Trinity, completely updated and revised, argues that neoliberal global capitalism has now entered a period of crisis so severe that governance will become impossible. Huge incomes for a small number of super-rich people produced an unstable global economy, rife with speculation and structurally prone to crises. The IMF is in disgrace, the WTO can hardly meet anymore and the World Bank survives as a global philanthropist. Is this the end for the Unholy Trinity?

The Liquidation of Government Debt

The Liquidation of Government Debt PDF Author: Ms.Carmen Reinhart
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1498338380
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 47

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Book Description
High public debt often produces the drama of default and restructuring. But debt is also reduced through financial repression, a tax on bondholders and savers via negative or belowmarket real interest rates. After WWII, capital controls and regulatory restrictions created a captive audience for government debt, limiting tax-base erosion. Financial repression is most successful in liquidating debt when accompanied by inflation. For the advanced economies, real interest rates were negative 1⁄2 of the time during 1945–1980. Average annual interest expense savings for a 12—country sample range from about 1 to 5 percent of GDP for the full 1945–1980 period. We suggest that, once again, financial repression may be part of the toolkit deployed to cope with the most recent surge in public debt in advanced economies.

Public Debt Through the Ages

Public Debt Through the Ages PDF Author: Mr.Barry J. Eichengreen
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1484392892
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 60

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Book Description
We consider public debt from a long-term historical perspective, showing how the purposes for which governments borrow have evolved over time. Periods when debt-to-GDP ratios rose explosively as a result of wars, depressions and financial crises also have a long history. Many of these episodes resulted in debt-management problems resolved through debasements and restructurings. Less widely appreciated are successful debt consolidation episodes, instances in which governments inheriting heavy debts ran primary surpluses for long periods in order to reduce those burdens to sustainable levels. We analyze the economic and political circumstances that made these successful debt consolidation episodes possible.

No Future

No Future PDF Author: Matthew Worley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107176891
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 419

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Book Description
An innovative history of British youth culture during the 1970s and 1980s, charting the full spectrum of punk's cultural development.

Pillaging the World

Pillaging the World PDF Author: Ernst Wolff
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783828834385
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Depriving entire generations of their hopes for a better future, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has risen to become the world's most powerful international financial organization. Blackmailing countries and pillaging whole continents for almost seven decades now, its history resembles a modern-day crusade against the working people on five continents. In his highly compelling account, journalist Ernst Wolff specifies the dramatic consequences of the IMF's practice of loan sharking and implementing neoliberal austerity measures. While exacerbating poverty, increasing hunger, furthering the spread of diseases and fuelling armed conflicts on the one hand, the Fund's policies have on the other hand helped a tiny group of ultra-rich profiteers increase their vast fortunes to immeasurable dimensions - allegedly in the name of ensuring the stability of the global financial system. // Ernst Wolff, born in 1950, spent his early childhood in South East Asia, went to school in Germany and studied history and philosophy in the US. He has worked in various professions, including journalism, translating and screenwriting. The interrelation between economics and politics, a subject he has been working on for four decades, has become of paramount significance to him. "The financial crisis of 2008 and the euro crisis were mere precursors of an impending financial tsunami whose destructive power the IMF and its allies will most certainly use as a pretext for globally imposing measures the likes of which we cannot even vaguely imagine at present."

The IMF and the Silent Revolution

The IMF and the Silent Revolution PDF Author: Mr.James M. Boughton
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 9781557759702
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 68

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Book Description
This pamphlet is adapted from Chapter 1 of Silent Revolution: The International Monetary Fund, 1979-89, by the same author. That book is full of history of the evolution of the Fund during 11 years in which the institution truly came of age as a participant in the international financial system.