Dear friends:
A short footnote on Barbara's mail and her short but stimulating joint paper. Re: "It seems to be important that this mutual support comes without conditionalities", I should
like to recall that the IMF was founded to operate WITHOUT conditionality at Bretton Woods (although conditionality had been discussed and had enjoyed some support), and did
so for some years.
Conditionality did not exist in the original IMF Articles of Agreement. The Fund started applying it since 1952 as a matter of a Board policy decision. Minds more critical than
I - practically everyone else - might add: in violation of the IMF's own statutes. It was as late as 1969 that conditionality became explicitly enshrined in the Articles of
Agreement and became thus legal. But it was proved that operating with conditionalities is possible.
May I add a link to a short comment of mine on Argentina? If interested, please click
http://www.primeeconomics.org/?p=3067#more-3067
Best
Kunibert Raffer
Dept. of Economics
University of Vienna, Austria
http://homepage.univie.ac.at/Kunibert.Raffer/
A short footnote on Barbara's mail and her short but stimulating joint paper. Re: "It seems to be important that this mutual support comes without conditionalities", I should
like to recall that the IMF was founded to operate WITHOUT conditionality at Bretton Woods (although conditionality had been discussed and had enjoyed some support), and did
so for some years.
Conditionality did not exist in the original IMF Articles of Agreement. The Fund started applying it since 1952 as a matter of a Board policy decision. Minds more critical than
I - practically everyone else - might add: in violation of the IMF's own statutes. It was as late as 1969 that conditionality became explicitly enshrined in the Articles of
Agreement and became thus legal. But it was proved that operating with conditionalities is possible.
May I add a link to a short comment of mine on Argentina? If interested, please click
http://www.primeeconomics.org/?p=3067#more-3067
Best
Kunibert Raffer
Dept. of Economics
University of Vienna, Austria
http://homepage.univie.ac.at/Kunibert.Raffer/
