The World Bank At The Millennium  

Oleh:

Stiglitz, Joseph E

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: The Economic Journal (EBSCO) vol. 109 no. 459 (Nov. 1999), page 577-597.
Topik: The World bank; millennium
Fulltext: 577[1].pdf (178.64KB)

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In the aftermath of World War II and in the wake of the Great Depression (surely one of the underlying causes of the war itself),1 the countries of the world created three international institutions designed to facilitate economic cooperation: the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD). GATT (which has since evolved into the World Trade Organisation) was to work on lowering trade barriers among nations and on preventing the beggar-thy-neighbour trade policies that were seen as a contributing factor to the breadth and depth of the Great Depression. The IMF was to provide liquidity and to sustain the international payments system (the gold standard that was reinstituted after the War). And the IBRD, known more generally as the World Bank, was primarily to facilitate the reconstruction of war-damaged Europe, and then to reach beyond that to aid in the development of what later became known as the Third World.2 It is now more than ®fty years since the creation of these institutions. Over that half-century, they have evolved enormously, especially in response to changing economic circumstances and changing needs. The 1971 abandonment of the gold standard by the United States (and subsequently by the rest of the world) clearly necessitated a change in the functioning and perhaps in the very role of the IMF. The collapse of the Soviet Union posed a new set of challenges to the international institutions ± namely facilitating the transition of the former Communist countries to a market economy. The ®ftieth anniversary of the Bretton Woods institutions (IMF and World Bank) was marked by criticism from a vocal international group dedicated to the notion that `Fifty Years Is Enough', re¯ecting a view among certain groups that these institutions had done as least as much or more harm than good. As the World Bank has

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