Description:
The greatest success of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank has been as globalizers. But at whose cost? Would borrowing countries be better off without the IMF and World Bank?
Brief description: Ngaire Woods is a Tenured Fellow at University College, Oxford, and Director of the Global Economic Governance Programme at Oxford University. She is the editor of The Political Economy of Globalization and Explaining International Relations since 1945 and the coeditor of Inequality, Globalization, and World Politics.
Review Quotes:
After World War II, the winning powers created the IMF, to bring stability to the international monetary system, and the World Bank, to channel investment into development and reconstruction projects. Woods examines both institutions and how they have preformed these roles in regard to underdeveloped borrower nations. She chronicles the involvement of the IMF and the World Bank with Mexico, Russia, and sub-Saharan Africa. In a very balanced analysis, she shows that both institutions have failed in many instances to improve the lot of such countries, too often promoting policies to please their powerful shareholder nations such as the United States while failing to understand and deal with the special needs of borrower nations. She concludes by recommending six reforms for the two institutions to make them more open and equitable in their advertising and lending.
-- "Library Journal"