The dominant policy response to economic crises over the past four
decades has been the introduction of austerity--a mix of budget cuts
and reforms to downsize the role of the state. The International
Monetary Fund (IMF) has been the world's lender of last resort and
leading advocate of austerity, and has been consistently chastised by
policymakers and civil society for the consequences of its economic
policy reforms on social protection. Critics of the IMF have
identified so-called structural adjustment programs as a key cause of
global increases in poverty, widespread disease, and unemployment. In
the face of such criticisms, the IMF has advanced a narrative of
wholesale reform to its practices. In _A Thousand Cuts_, Alexandros
Kentikelenis and Thomas Stubbs provide a systematic and comprehensive
analysis of IMF policies around the world. Based on novel data from
the IMF archives, Kentikelenis and Stubbs have generated a replicable
database of all IMF-mandated reforms from 1980-2019 to examine their
effects on social policies and outcomes. They reveal that although the
precise content of IMF-mandated austerity has changed considerably
over time, the organization continues to place a high burden of reform
on countries in crisis. These reforms then decrease the availability
of important social services and contribute to rises in income
inequality and decline in population health. Kentikelenis and Stubbs
argue that in spite of reform rhetoric, the IMF's practices--and the
outcomes they produce--have changed very little over the past three
decades. As one of the first systematic assessments of the impact of
austerity on people's lives around the world, _A Thousand Cuts_ makes
an important contribution to the continuing debate regarding the
consequences of the IMF and how it might better support social
protection.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780190637750
Publisert
2023
Utgiver
Vendor
Oxford University Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter