Debt And Disorder: External Financing For Development

by John Loxley

One of the most important and controversial challenges feeing the international financial and trading system is the need for developing countries to meet their high and rapidly growing external debt obligations and foreign exchange requirements. Developing countries have suffered major shocks in the form of global recession, high real interest rates, weakened terms of trade, and rising protectionism against their exports. The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, Western central banks, and private financial institutions are seeking to avoid a collapse of the international financial system, and developing countries are seeking to grow through increased trade and access to external financing. Yet the fragility of current international trade and monetary systems seriously threatens the achievement of both sets of objectives. Professor Loxley integrates the structural adjustment experience of Third World countries with the policies, practices, and relationships of external financial agents in his discussion of options for reforming policy and of the limitations inherent in implementing these reforms.

Paperback

Published October 16, 1986

About the author

John Loxley is Professor and former head of the Department of Economics at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. He specializes in international finance, international development and community economic development, in particular alternatives to orthodox economic theory and policy. His distinguished career includes stints at Makerere University and the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, as well as service to the governments of Tanzania, Uganda, Madagascar, Mozambique, and Manitoba as economic advisor.