This paper highlights that the 1980 Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the IMF affirmed the willingness of the IMF to evolve, under its charter, to meet new circumstances; but in some ways there was a departure from the past. Two substantive problems dominated the Meeting: the...

This paper highlights the sources of payments problems in less developed countries. Growth in the industrial countries has a direct impact on the current account of the developing countries through its influence on both the prices and volumes of their exports. An increase in the real effective...

This paper anlayzes the role of the International Financial Corporation (IFC) in promoting economic development in developing countries with the private sector. IFC promotes growth of new companies, indigenous companies, and helps to introduce more capital from private sources into developing...

This paper elaborates the introduction of surveillance that gave the IMF broader responsibilities with respect to oversight of its members’ policies than existed under the par value system. The IMF’s purview has been broadened under the new system but, by the same token, its members are no...

This paper describes the World Bank’s mission in a changing world. Conditionality of the Bank is different in several ways as it operates over a longer timeframe and relates to the more comfortable issues of economic growth rather than financial stabilization. The longer timeframes of the...

The issue of capital flight from developing countries is discussed. The debt problems of developing countries coupled with the sharp decline in international lending to many countries have evoked great interest in the issue of private capital outflows, or capital flight, from these countries...

This paper examines the policy implications of structural changes in financial markets. Domestic financial markets have become less segmented, and the major financial centers more integrated. At the same time, the structural changes in financial markets have improved efficiency by lowering...

This paper examines the importance of national planning for economic development of a country. The paper highlights that when World War II began, Soviet Russia was the only country engaged in systematic development planning, and then only since 1929, when its First Five-Year Plan was approved....

This paper highlights that the annual meetings of the World Bank and its affiliates, the International Development Association (IDA) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and of the IMF, were held in September 1965 in Washington. At the Bank Group meetings, stress was laid on the...

This paper discusses the project financed by the World Bank for controlling the flow of the Chao Phya River in Thailand. Chao Phya is the lifestream of the Thai people. However, this river, and its principal tributaries are, in their natural state, capricious rivers. In the early 1950s, the...