Currency convertibility is a far-reaching instrument to facilitate integration into the global economy. With it a country can gain the benefits of increased freedom in capital movements and of fostering trade and financial linkages worldwide. A seminar sponsored by the Arab Monetary Fund and the IMF, held in Marrakesh, Morocco, discussed the theoretical and empirical aspects of currency convertibility in the Arab countries. The volume, edited by Manuel Guitián and Saleh M. Nsouli, reproduces the papers presented at the seminar.
This paper documents the main themes covered in two seminars (December 2011 and September 2012) on monetary policy and implementation at the IMF—Middle East Center for Economics and Finance, and includes country case studies. Against the backdrop of the global financial crisis and swings in cross-border capital flows, operational frameworks have become more flexible, and liquidity management has impacted the relationship between the policy rate corridor and market rates. The balance sheet structure of central banks in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) shows differences between oil exporters and others, while a few countries have exhibited notable changes since early 2011. Collateral now has a significant financial stability function. Although only one MENA country is part of the G20, implementation of the Basel III bank capital adequacy and liquidity rules will most likely impact banks’ way of doing business in MENA countries, even if indirectly.
Listen to a short interview with Rawi AbdelalHost: Chris Gondek | Producer: Heron & Crane The rise of global financial markets in the last decades of the twentieth century was premised on one fundamental idea: that capital ought to flow across country borders with minimal restriction and regulation. Freedom for capital movements became the new orthodoxy. In an intellectual, legal, and political history of financial globalization, Rawi Abdelal shows that this was not always the case. Transactions routinely executed by bankers, managers, and investors during the 1990s--trading foreign stocks and bonds, borrowing in foreign currencies--had been illegal in many countries only decades, and sometimes just a year or two, earlier. How and why did the world shift from an orthodoxy of free capital movements in 1914 to an orthodoxy of capital controls in 1944 and then back again by 1994? How have such standards of appropriate behavior been codified and transmitted internationally? Contrary to conventional accounts, Abdelal argues that neither the U.S. Treasury nor Wall Street bankers have preferred or promoted multilateral, liberal rules for global finance. Instead, European policy makers conceived and promoted the liberal rules that compose the international financial architecture. Whereas U.S. policy makers have tended to embrace unilateral, ad hoc globalization, French and European policy makers have promoted a rule-based, "managed" globalization. This contest over the character of globalization continues today.
Middle East and North Africa Investment Policy Perspectives highlights the considerable progress in investment policies made by the region’s governments over the past decade. Yet, the reform momentum needs to be sustained and deepened for the benefits of investment to be shared with society at large and for growth to be sustainable, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting global economic upheaval.
Over the past decade, four major developments in global economic integration have shaped trade policy and the economic performance of countries within the Middle East and North Africa region: the emergence of global supply chains, the growth of trade in services, the rise of China and India as major international trading powers, and regional integration. These developments, along with the labor and natural resource endowments of particular countries (some are resource-poor but labor-abundant, some resource-rich and labor-abundant, and some resource-rich and labor-importing), have influenced export diversification outcomes across the region. Yet these countries may not be taking full advantage of all of the opportunities the four new trends offer to them. 'Trade Competitiveness of the Middle East and North Africa: Policies for Export Diversification' examines the region's trade policy agendas and their results by focusing on the countries' response to these four key developments in international trade. As the region recovers from the global financial and economic crises, the book identifies reforms that could allow countries to further strengthen global production networks, benefit more from trade in services, better compete in external markets to face the rise of China and India, and reach the full potential of regional integration. If thoroughly implemented, especially by oil exporters, all of these reforms could help boost growth and job creation in the region.
Der politische und wirtschaftliche Entwicklungsstand eines Landes ist messbar: Im internationalen Vergleich lassen sich die Leistungen politischer Entscheidungsträger und die daraus resultierenden Transformationsprozesse gegenüberstellen. Den Entwicklungsstand in 128 Entwicklungs- und Transformationsländern dokumentiert die Bertelsmann Stiftung alle zwei Jahre in ihrem Transformationsindex: Anhand ausführlicher Ländergutachten beleuchtet der Index die Wirkung von Reformstrategien auf dem Weg zu rechtsstaatlicher Demokratie und sozialer Marktwirtschaft. Er gibt damit Akteuren in Politik, Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft und Wissenschaft wichtige Hinweise und Impulse für ihre Arbeit. Der Untersuchungszeitraum des "Transformationsindex BTI 2012" reicht vom Frühjahr 2009 bis zum Frühjahr 2011. Die sieben ergänzenden Materialbände "Regional Findings" beinhalten die ausführlichen englischsprachigen Regionalüberblicke und Langfassungen der Länderberichte zu den sieben untersuchten Regionen: Ostmittel- und Südosteuropa; Lateinamerika und Karibik; West- und Zentralafrika; Naher Osten und Nordafrika; Östliches und südliches Afrika; Postsowjetisches Eurasien; Asien und Ozeanien. The peaceful transition of authoritarian regimes towards democracy and a market economy poses enormous challenges for citizens and politicians alike. Around the world, under widely differing conditions and with varying degrees of success, reform-oriented groups are struggling to democratize their countries and to strengthen the market economy. Good governance is the decisive factor for the success or failure of any transition process. The Bertelsmann Stiftung's Transformation Index is published every two years. The global ranking measures and compares transition processes worldwide on the basis of detailed country reports. Comparing systematically the status of democracy and market economy on an international basis, the BTI also provides comprehensive data on the quality of political management.
As former Director of Research and a founding member of the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund, Jacques J. Polak has advised theoreticians and policymakers worldwide. This collection brings together his most current writings, and is published under the auspices of the IMF. The hallmark of Dr. Polak's recent research has been his ability to draw on decades of personal experience and reflection to comprehend and describe the context for current policy debates. In the past decade, he has contributed much to the debates on international financial policy and the role of the IMF, and this volume brings together most of these recent papers to make them accessible to a broader audience.
RMB: Towards Internationalization takes an in-depth look at the exchange rate regime of China's currency, the RMB, including the arrangements, related policies and management, and corresponding policy recommendations. This is the first book to apply the theories of fictitious economy, complexity science and the principles of international finance to analyze the RMB exchange rate regime. For readers interested in China's economy in general and RMB internationalization in particular, this book provides an entirely new analytical framework on the history and evolution of RMB exchange regime and on its future development.
This book contributes to the study of International Organizations (IOs) by providing a sharp focus on how IOs’ "analytic institutions" interact with states over key policy issues. Analytic institutions include the areas, departments, committees, adjudicatory bodies, and others housed by or linked to IOs that develop the cognitive framework for identifying, understanding, and solving policy problems. Analytic institutions make the state "legible" to IOs and are the key means for how IOs "see" their member states, shaping how international political and economic problems are understood. This book investigates why seeing like an IO matters through cases on leading organizations for global economic governance, including the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Bank for International Settlements, the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, and the World Trade Organization. The contributors demonstrate the benefits of studying IOs "from the inside-out" to enrich our understanding of why issues in the international political economy are governed the way they are. This book was published as a special issue of New Political Economy.
With the effects of the latest financial crisis still unfolding, this is a timely guide to the politics of international financial reform comparing the policies that the international community requested the IMF to follow in the aftermath of the Mexican, Asian, and subprime crisis.
