After the Rain : how the West lost the East Part 24

It got involved in the Latin American Debt Crisis - namely, in problems of debt servicing. It is to this period that we can trace the emergence of the New IMF: invigorated, powerful, omnipresent, omniscient, mildly threatening - the monetary police of the global economic scene.

The SAF (Structural Adjustment Facility) was created. Its role was to provide BOP a.s.sistance on concessional terms to low income, developing countries (Macedonia benefited from its successor, ESAF). Five years later, following the now unjustly infamous Louvre Accord, which dealt with the stabilization of exchange rates), it was extended to become ESAF (Extended Structural Adjustment Facility). The idea was to support low-income members, which undertake a strong 3-year macroeconomic and structural program intended to improve their BOP and to foster growth - providing that they are enduring protracted BOP problems. ESAF loans finance 3-year programs with a subsidized symbolic interest rate of 0.5% per annum. The country has 5 years grace and the loan matures in 10 years. The economic a.s.sessment of the country is a.s.sessed quarterly and biannually. Macedonia is only one of 79 countries eligible to receive ESAF funds.

In 1989, the IMF started linking support for debt reduction strategies of member countries to sustained medium term adjustment programs with strong elements of structural reforms and with access to IMF resources for the express purposes of retiring old debts, reducing outstanding borrowing from foreign sources or otherwise servicing debt without resorting to rescheduling it. To these ends, the IMF created the STF (Systemic Transformation Facility - also used by Macedonia). It was a temporary outfit, which expired in April 1995. It provided financial a.s.sistance to countries, which faced BOP difficulties, which arose from a transformation (transition) from planned economies to market ones.

Only countries with what were judged by the IMF to have been severe disruptions in trade and payments arrangements benefited from it. It had to be repaid in 4.5-10 years.

In 1994, the Madrid Declaration set different goals for different varieties of economies. Industrial economies were supposed to emphasize sustained growth, reduction in unemployment and the prevention of a resurgence of by now subdued inflation. Developing countries were allocated the role of extending their growth. Countries in transition had to engage in bold stabilization and reform to win the Fund's approval. A new category was created, in the best of acronym tradition: HIPCs (Heavily Indebted Poor Countries). In 1997 New Arrangements to Borrow (NAB) were set in motion. They became the first and princ.i.p.al recourse in case that IMF supplementary resources were needed. No one imagined how quickly these would be exhausted and how far sighted these arrangement have proven to be. No one predicted the area either: Southeast Asia.

Despite these momentous structural changes in the ways in which the IMF extends its a.s.sistance, the details of the decision-making processes have not been altered for more than half a century. The IMF has a Board of Governors. It includes 1 Governor (plus 1 Alternative Governor) from every member country (normally, the Minister of Finance or the Governor of the Central Bank of that member). They meet annually (in the autumn) and coordinate their meeting with that of the World Bank.

The Board of Governors oversees the operation of a Board of Executive Directors, which looks after the mundane, daily business. It is composed of the Managing Director (Michel Camdessus from 1987 till 2000) as the Chairman of the Board and 24 Executive Directors appointed or elected by big members or groups of members. There is also an Interim Committee of the International Monetary System.

The members' voting rights are determined by their quota which (as we said) is determined by their contributions and by their needs. The USA is the biggest gun, followed by Germany, j.a.pan, France and the UK.

There is little dispute that the IMF is a big, indispensable, success.

Without it the world monetary system would have entered phases of contraction much more readily. Without the a.s.sistance that it extends and the bitter medicines that it administers - many countries would have been in an even worse predicament than they are already. It imposes monetary and fiscal discipline, it forces governments to plan and think, it imposes painful adjustments and reforms. It serves as a convenient scapegoat: the politicians can blame it for the economic woes that their voters (or citizens) endure. It is very useful. Lately, it lends credibility to countries and manages crisis situations (though still not very skilfully).

This scapegoat role const.i.tutes the basis for the first criticism.

People the world over tend to hide behind the IMF leaf and blame the results of their incompetence and corruption on it. Where a market economy could have provided a swifter and more resolute adjustment - the diversion of scarce human and financial resources to negotiating with the IMF seems to prolong the agony. The abrogation of responsibility by decision makers poses a moral hazard: if successful - the credit goes to the politicians, if failing - the IMF is always to blame. Rage and other negative feeling, which would have normally brought about real, transparent, corruption-free, efficient market economy are vented and deflected. The IMF money encourages corrupt and inefficient spending because it cannot really be controlled and monitored (at least not on a real time basis). Also, the more resources governments have - the more will be lost to corruption and inefficiency. Zimbabwe is a case in point: following a dispute regarding an austerity package dictated by the IMF (the government did not feel like cutting government spending to that extent) - the country was cut off from IMF funding. The results were surprising: with less financing from the IMF (and as a result - from donor countries, as well) - the government was forced to rationalize and to restrict its spending. The IMF would not have achieved these results because its control mechanisms are flawed: they rely to heavily on local, official input and they are remote (from Washington). They are also underfunded.

Despite these shortcomings, the IMF a.s.sumed two roles, which were not historically identified with it. It became a country credit risk-rating agency. The absence of an IMF seal of approval could - and usually does - mean financial suffocation. No banks or donor countries will extend credit to a country lacking the IMF's endors.e.m.e.nt. On the other hand, as authority (to rate) is shifted - so does responsibility. The IMF became a super-guarantor of the debts of both the public and private sectors. This encourages irresponsible lending and investments (why worry, the IMF will bail me out in case of default). This is the "Moral Hazard": the safety net is fast being transformed into a licence to gamble. The profits accrue to the gambler - the losses to the IMF. This does not encourage prudence or discipline.

The IMF is too restricted both in its ability to operate and in its ability to conceptualise and to innovate. It is too stale: a scroll in the age of the video clip. It, therefore, resorts to prescribing the same medicine of austerity to all the country patients, which are suffering from a myriad of economic diseases. No one would call a doctor who uniformly administers penicillin - a good doctor and, yet, this, exactly is what the IMF is doing. And it is doing so with utter disregard and ignorance of the local social, cultural (even economic) realities. Add to this the fact that the IMF's ability to influence the financial markets in an age of globalisation is dubious (to use a gross understatement - the daily turnover in the foreign exchange markets alone is 6 times the total equity of this organization). The result is fiascos like South Korea where a 60 billion USD aid package was consumed in days without providing any discernible betterment of the economic situation. More and more, the IMF looks anachronistic (not to say archaic) and its goals untenable.

The IMF also displays the whole gamut of problems which plague every bureaucratic inst.i.tution: discrimination (why help Mexico and not Bulgaria - is it because it shares no border with the USA), politicisation (South Korean officials complained that the IMF officials were trying to smuggle trade concessions to the USA in an otherwise totally financial package of measures) and too much red tape.

But this was to be expected of an organization this size and with so much power.

The medicine is no better than the doctor or, for that matter, than the disease that it is intended to cure.

The IMF forces governments to restrict flows of capital and goods.

Reducing budget deficits belongs to the former - reducing balance of payments deficits, to the latter. Consequently, government find themselves between the hard rock of not complying with the IMF performance demands (and criteria) - and the hammer of needing its a.s.sistance more and more often, getting hooked on it.

The crusader-economist Michel Chossudowski wrote once that the IMF's adjustment policies "trigger the destruction of whole economies". With all due respect (Chossudowski conducted research in 100 countries regarding this issue), this looks a trifle overblown. Overall, the IMF has beneficial accounts, which cannot be discounted so off-handedly.

But the process that he describes is, to some extent, true:

Devaluation (forced on the country by the IMF in order to encourage its exports and to stabilize its currency) leads to an increase in the general price level (also known as inflation). In other words: immediately after a devaluation, the prices go up (this happened in Macedonia and led to a doubling of the inflation which persisted before the 16% devaluation in July 1997). High prices burden businesses and increase their default rates. The banks increase their interest rates to compensate for the higher risk (=higher default rate) and to claw back part of the inflation (=to maintain the same REAL interest rates as before the increase in inflation). Wages are never fully indexed.

The salaries lag after the cost of living and the purchasing power of households is eroded. Taxes fall as a result of a decrease in wages and the collapse of many businesses and either the budget is cruelly cut (austerity and scaling back of social services) or the budget deficit increases (because the government spends more than it collects in taxes). Another bad option (though rarely used) is to raise taxes or improve the collection mechanisms. Rising manufacturing costs (fuel and freight are denominated in foreign currencies and so do many of the tradable inputs) lead to pricing out of many of the local firms (their prices become too high for the local markets to afford). A flood of cheaper imports ensues and the comparative advantages of the country suffer. Finally, the creditors take over the national economic policy (which is reminiscent of darker, colonial times).

And if this sounds familiar it is because this is exactly what is happening in Macedonia today. Communism to some extent was replaced by IMF-ism. In an age of the death of ideologies, this is a poor - and dangerous - choice. The country spends 500 million USD annually on totally unnecessary consumption (cars, jam, detergents). It gets this money from the IMF and from donor countries but an awful price: the loss of its hard earned autonomy and freedom. No country is independent if the strings of its purse are held by others.

(Article written in January, 1998)

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The IMF Deconstructed

A Dialogue with Mr. Tom Rodwell

The following is a standard IMF doc.u.ment, taken from its own website.

Underlined phrases are related to categories A and/or B (see below).

The phrases here are general examples as part of general criticism of the ideological tone and "aesthetic" of the IMF. This dialogue is a combination of philosophy and economics: does/can the IMF (or any organization) "facilitate the expansion and balanced growth of international trade?"

The IMF is the cornerstone and centrepiece of the financial architecture of the world. Long a sacred cow, it has lately become the eye of a controversy. Its prescriptions to ailing countries as diverse as Zimbabwe and Russia have, at times, proven to be inadequate, some say: ruinous. The IMF is a result of an ideology and its instrument.

This is clearly revealed in its intentionally vaguely phrased doc.u.ments. Tom and Sam, a philosopher/journalist/composer and a philosopher and physicist turned economist, try to read between the lines (in the best of East European traditions...).

The IMF:

Statutory Purposes

The IMF was created to promote international monetary co-operation; to facilitate the expansion and balanced growth of international trade; to promote exchange stability; to a.s.sist in the establishment of a multilateral system of payments; to make its general resources temporarily available to its members experiencing balance of payments difficulties under adequate safeguards; and to shorten the duration and lessen the degree of disequilibrium in the international balances of payments of members.

Areas of Activity

Surveillance is the process by which the IMF appraises its members'

exchange rate policies within the framework of a comprehensive a.n.a.lysis of the general economic situation and the policy strategy of each member. The IMF fulfils its surveillance responsibilities through: annual bilateral Article IV consultations with individual countries; multilateral surveillance twice a year in the context of its World Economic Outlook (WEO) exercise; and precautionary arrangements, enhanced surveillance, and program monitoring, which provide a member with close monitoring from the IMF in the absence of the use of IMF resources. (Precautionary arrangements serve to boost international confidence in a member's policies. Program monitoring may include the setting of benchmarks under a shadow program, but it does not const.i.tute a formal IMF endors.e.m.e.nt.)

IMF IDEOLOGICAL TONE

Tom:

The nature of the IMF is inextricably linked with its controlling member state and staff's economic and political viewpoints. The IMF talks about itself, and about economic/political phenomena generally, in precisely the same terms. The kind of economics it discusses is one of authority, monitoring, and, dare I say it, intervention. While the IMF allegedly intends to promote "international monetary co-operation"

and to "facilitate the expansion and balanced growth of international trade" (standard free-market shibboleths), it consistently refers to "enhanced surveillance", "close monitoring", and "precautionary arrangements". Orwellian undertones are hardly m.u.f.fled.

Sam:

The IMF has yet to adopt the "client-orientated" approach. It harbours deep (and oft-justified) distrust of the willingness of governments to blindly follow its dictates. It is a paranoid organization, based on authoritarian techniques of "negotiations" and "agreement". Euphemisms rule. Normally, the IMF holds "consultations" with the host governments. These are rather one-sided affairs. The governments are needy and impoverished ones. They lack the cadre of educated people needed in order to truly engage the IMF in constructive discourse. They are intimidated by the bullying tactics of the IMF and of its emissaries. The tone is imperial and impatient.

Tom:

The IMF clearly sees itself as the authority on international development ideology. International development becomes an ideological construction, with subsets of subjective terms: free trade, financial contact, and economic vision. Many of these terms are defined in such a way that they enframe that which they discuss. The ideological position of the influential members is often significantly different from the developing countries. Sadly, the ideology only becomes reality when it is part of every day life in the developing nations.

Sam:

Worse still, the IMF's language is riddled with contradictions in terms and logical fallacies. Let us review a few: International monetary co-operation in IMF lingo means exchange (rate) stability. But with such stability the expansion and balanced growth of international trade is not achievable. Trade is based on dynamic exchange rate disparities.

Moreover, there is nothing inherently wrong in such dynamism. The changing disparities reflect the relative advantages of the countries involved. In a world of fixed exchange rates - trade stagnates. And what is "balanced" growth anyhow? Trade has been growing at 3-5% annually for a few years now. Is this balanced, overdone or insufficient, as some free trade zealots cry out?