Introduction
In July, 1944 the major (Allied) powers of the world held a conference
under United Nations auspices, at
Bretton Woods, New
Hampshire, US, to consider the management and organisation of a
post-war world. The conference resulted in the creation of the
International Monetary Fund, to
promote international monetary cooperation, and of the
International Bank for Reconstruction and
Development.
By Dec., 1945, the required number of governments had ratified the
treaties creating the two organizations, and by the summer of 1946 they
had begun operation. A third world organisation, the
International Trade Organisation,
was also proposed, but was not ratified (by the US in particular), so
was not established at that time. Instead, the International
Community established
General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1947, which became the
treaty according to which international trade relations were to be
governed and through which disputes were to be resolved.
Why? The experience of
two major world wars, and also a world-wide Great Depression in the
1930s, convinced the world leaders at that time of the need for
International governance and organisation of their international
relations. The major objective was to prevent the world falling
into another Great Depression - widely accepted as having contributed
to the rise of fascism and a major factor in the generation of WWII.
The causes/contributors to the Great Depression of the 1930s were
understood to have been monetary and fiscal inflexibility (leading many
countries to pursue tight monetary policies, exacerbating the
depression, while also attempting to balance government budgets,
restricting government spending to match falling tax revenues, also
contracting economies. In addition, many countries also resorted to
trade protection (tariffs and import quotas) in a misguided attempt to
protect their own producers, with the result that trade flows fell, and
with them export earnings, further deepening the depression. World
leaders and their
advisors were determined not to let such an event happen again, and
hoped to institute three major world (UN) organisations to help prevent
it.
(Lord) John
Maynard Keynes and Harry Dexter White were the intellectual founding
fathers of the IMF and the World Bank. White was the chief
international economist at the U.S. Treasury. In 1944, he drafted the
American plan for the IMF that competed with the British Treasury
blueprint drafted by Keynes.
The International
Monetary Fund (IMF),
is a specialized agency of the United Nations, established in 1945.
with its
headquarters in Washington, D.C. (opposite the World Bank, see below,
with which there is (supposed to be) close collaboration). It is "an
organization of 184 countries, working to foster global
monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate
international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic
growth, and reduce poverty." (to quote the banner on the IMF's front
page)
The IMF, using a fund subscribed by the member nations,
purchases foreign currencies on application from its members so as to
discharge international indebtedness and stabilize exchange rates. In
other words, it acts as reserve banker to the member states Central
Banks.
To facilitate international trade and reduce
inequities in exchange, the fund has limited power to set the par value
of currencies. Members are provided with technical assistance in making
monetary transactions. In 1995 the fund moved to increase disclosure
requirements of countries borrowing money and at the same time created
an emergency bail-out fund for countries in financial crisis. IMF was
criticized in 1998 for exacerbating the Asian financial crisis, through
the fund’s decision to require Asian nations to raise their interest
rates to record levels. The fund is ruled by a board of governors, with
one representative from each nation. The board of governors elects an
executive board of some 20 representatives to conduct regular
operations. There are 184 members in the IMF (2001).
The
IMF currency reserve units are called
Special
Drawing Rights (SDRs), an international monetary reserve
currency established (1968) by the IMF. Created in response to worries
concerning the limitations of
gold and dollars as the sole means of settling international accounts,
SDRs are designed to augment international liquidity by supplementing
the standard reserve currencies. SDRs are assigned to the accounts of
IMF members in proportion to their contributions to the fund. Each
participating country agrees to accept them as exchangeable for reserve
currencies in the settlement of international accounts. Deficit
countries can use them to purchase stronger currencies, which then can
be used to pay off balance-of-payments debts. As nations adopted the
current system of floating exchange rates (1973), the value of SDRs
began to be set relative to a “basket” of major currencies. In 1981 the
IMF reduced the basket to five currencies (the U.S. dollar, German
Deutschmark, Japanese yen, French franc, and British pound); in 1999
the Deutschmark and franc were replaced by their equivalents in the
euro. All IMF accounting is done in SDRs, and commercial banks accept
SDR-denominated accounts. The IMF has the exclusive right of allocating
SDRs; the last such allocation was made in 1981 (as of 2001).
For further details of the IMF and its operation, see the
IMF's
student pages.
The
World Bank.
The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) - more
usually known as the World Bank, again a specialized agency of the
United Nations, with
headquarters at Washington, D.C. It was formally organized in
1945, when 28 countries
ratified the agreement, with an initial focus on reconstruction of
Europe following WWII ("the last part, "Development" was added almost
as an afterthought" (Stiglitz, p 11). There are now 184 members. The
bank not only
makes loans to member nations, but, under government guarantee, to
private investors, for the purpose of facilitating productive
investment, encouraging foreign trade, and discharging burdens of
international debt.
All members of the bank must also belong to the International Monetary
Fund.
The bank is self-sustaining and has maintained a profit on its lending
activities. It is controlled by a board of governors, one from each
member state. Votes are allocated according to capital subscription.
Ordinary affairs are conducted by 22 executive directors, five
appointed by the five largest capital subscribers, the United States,
Germany, Japan, Great Britain, and France, and 17 elected by the
remaining members. Regional vice presidents oversee the bank’s
operations in five regions: Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, East
Africa, West Africa, and (in one grouping) Europe, the Middle East, and
North Africa.
The
bank also operates the Economic Development Institute, which offers
training in economic development for officials of member countries.
Closely affiliated with the bank is the International Finance
Corporation (est. 1956), which invests in private enterprises without
government guarantee. The bank organized the International Development
Association (1960) to extend credit on easier terms, mainly to
developing countries. The group of
(5)
institutions is known as the World
Bank Group. Criticism that the IBRD-financed projects were
environmentally destructive led the bank to establish an environmental
fund (1990) providing low-interest loans for developing countries.
Developing nations have complained that the IBRD imposes the
free-market system on them, thereby discouraging planning,
nationalization, and public investment.
"The World Bank Group’s mission is to fight
poverty and
improve the living standards of people in the developing world. It is a
development Bank which provides loans, policy advice, technical
assistance and knowledge sharing services to low and middle income
countries to reduce poverty. The Bank promotes growth to create jobs
and to empower poor people to take advantage of these opportunities"
(from the Bank's information page)
Note: Although the World Bank
is the most important, it is far from the only international
organisation trying to assist and fund development. Not only do all
developed countries have their own aid and development government
departments (e.g. the
Department for
International Development (DfID)
in the UK), but there are also several regional development banks,
including the
Inter-American Development
Bank, the
Asian Development Bank,
the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (
EBRD), the
African Development Bank, The
Islamic Development Bank, the
Carribbean Development Bank.
The GATT (now the
World Trade Organisation, WTO).
GENERAL AGREEMENT ON TARIFFS & TRADE: signed in 1947
consisted of:
- An AGREEMENT (38 Articles) on International Trade Rules
- A PROCESS of negotiation of rules & dispute settlement
- A SECRETARIAT to service these negotiations etc.
GATT History:
- Agreement signed in 1947
- Rounds of negotiations:
- Phase 1: Geneva (2), Annecy, Torquay: froze and bound
existing tariffs
and agreed coverage for further rounds of negotiations (1947 ff)
- Phase 2: Dillon (59/61); Kennedy (63/67); Tokyo (73/79) -
substantial reduction
in tariffs on request/offer basis (Dillon) and then formulae/codes
basis.
- Phase 3: Uruguay (86/94);
- Phase 4: WTO: Doha, the current round (2000,
scheduled to end in 2005)
Note: "request/offer"
and "rules/codes" processes of negotiations mean what they say.
The
first consists of each party making offers of what it will do and
requests
for what it expects other parties to do in terms of reducing barriers
to
trade. The second consists of the negotiating parties trying to
agree
a specific set of codes and rules by which tariffs and other barriers
will
be defined, and reduced. The major point of holding Multilateral
Trade Negotiations (MTNs) in 'rounds' embracing a number of different
sectors (potentially all of them) is that countries can hope to 'win'
some concessions from others in some areas, in return for giving up
some protection of their own in other areas (sectors). It is frequently
remarked that this negotiation (bargaining) is essentially mercantalist
(you scratch my back ...) rather than premised on the economic
arguments in favour of free trade. However, it recognises the
difficulties that elected governments have in persuading domestic
constituencies to give up previously protected status.
Agriculture is, perhaps, the classic case.
GATT Principles:
- - Most Favoured Nation (A.1)
- - National Treatment (A.3)
- - Tariffication & Binding
- - Prohibition of Quotas
- - Prohibition of Dumping & Export Subsidies
- - Safeguards for national interests.
GATT and Agriculture: - Agriculture treated as an EXCEPTION from
the outset - quotas (A.11), export subsidies (A.16) allowed under
special
status clauses - Reinforced by 1955 US indefinite waiver on ag.,
1956
effective extension of this waiver to EC and CAP - which granted
supremacy
of domestic farm policies over GATT principles.
But, by 1980s, Special Status of Agriculture was no longer
sustainable . -> Uruguay Round: the Agreement
on Agriuclture (URAA), which effectively brings agriculture within the
general provisions of the GATT, and the final formation of the World
Trade Organisation (1995), completing the International Governance
structures envisaged at the end of WWII.
"The past 50
years have seen an exceptional growth in world trade. Merchandise
exports grew on average by 6% annually. Total trade in 2000 was
22-times the level of 1950. GATT and the WTO have helped to create a
strong and prosperous trading system contributing to unprecedented
growth." WTO breifing page.
DO
THESE ORGANISATIONS WORK?
Whatever their faults, and there are
bound to many, it is very difficult to conclude that they have not
materially assisted the growth and development of many of the world's
economies in the past 60 years. While some will quarrel that
economic development still has a massive way to go, and that economic
growth itself is not necessarily a uniquely desirable objective, it is
almost impossible to conclude that by and large people in the world are
not better off than they were before these organisations, and the
spirits and ideas which they reflect, came into being.
Nevertheless, financial and economic crises still occur (in spite of
the IMF); a dreadfully large number and proportion of the world's
population still exist in absolute poverty, if not actual starvation
(in spite of the World Bank); trade disputes are frequent, trade
protection (especially in agriculture and raw materials) persists, and
martets are often seen as less than fully competitive, in spite of GATT
and the WTO.
The very existence of these organisations is testimony to the fact the
markets do not always (even, perhaps often) work well on their own -
they need enlightened and sensible government and governance, as noted
in the previous session. The major reasons why markets fail (in the
context of globalisation) is the subject of the next session. In
addition, however, each of these organisations is political - they
depend on international agreements politically negotiated for their
existence and their funding. If they do not follow the political
imperatives which underly their existence and continued operation, they
will fail. The politics on which they rely is not democratic, in the
sense of one person, one vote, but
real
politique - the powerful and the rich nations have much more say
than the poor and the weak. So, we can expect that there will also be
political failure in their operation. Finally, they are bureacracies -
populated with the products of the world's most 'advanced' schools and
universities, and defensive of their own 'established wisdoms', however
theoretically unfounded or ungrounded in real evidence these turn out
to be. Typically, individuals and groups within these organisations
will be alive to these dangers, and will seek alternatives. However,
pursuit of these alternatives through the bureaucratic heirarchies is
always likely to slow.
In short, they are the best we have so far managed to produce, but are
clearly far from perfect. The next session examines the key problems
(from your lecturer's perspective.
Back to AEF318 Index.