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Structural Adjustment Loan
Structural adjustment programs (SAPs) consist of loans (structural adjustment loans; SALs) provided by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) to countries that experience economic crises. Their purpose is to adjust the country's economic structure, improve international competitiveness, and restore its balance of payments. The IMF and World Bank (two Bretton Woods institutions) require borrowing countries to implement certain policies in order to obtain new loans (or to lower interest rates on existing ones). These policies are typically centered around increased privatization, liberalizing trade and foreign investment, and balancing government deficit. The conditionality clauses attached to the loans have been criticized because of their effects on the social sector. SAPs are created with the stated goal of reducing the borrowing country's fiscal imbalances in the short and medium term or in order to adjust the economy to long-term growth. By requiring the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Monetary Fund
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world." Formed in 1944, started on 27 December 1945, at the Bretton Woods Conference primarily by the ideas of Harry Dexter White and John Maynard Keynes, it came into formal existence in 1945 with 29 member countries and the goal of reconstructing the international monetary system. It now plays a central role in the management of balance of payments difficulties and international financial crises. Countries contribute funds to a pool through a quota system from which countries experiencing balance of payments problems can borrow money. , the fund had XDR 477 billion (a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Currency Devaluation
In macroeconomics and modern monetary policy, a devaluation is an official lowering of the value of a country's currency within a fixed exchange-rate system, in which a monetary authority formally sets a lower exchange rate of the national currency in relation to a foreign reference currency or currency basket. The opposite of devaluation, a change in the exchange rate making the domestic currency more expensive, is called a ''revaluation''. A monetary authority (e.g., a central bank) maintains a fixed value of its currency by being ready to buy or sell foreign currency with the domestic currency at a stated rate; a devaluation is an indication that the monetary authority will buy and sell foreign currency at a lower rate. However, under a floating exchange rate system (in which exchange rates are determined by market forces acting on the foreign exchange market, and not by government or central bank policy actions), a decrease in a currency's value relative to other major curren ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Primary Education
Primary education or elementary education is typically the first stage of formal education, coming after preschool/kindergarten and before secondary school. Primary education takes place in ''primary schools'', ''elementary schools'', or first schools and middle schools, depending on the location. The International Standard Classification of Education considers primary education as a single-phase where programmes are typically designed to provide fundamental reading, writing, and mathematics skills and establish a solid foundation for learning. This is ISCED Level 1: Primary education or first stage of basic education.Annex III in the ISCED 2011 English.pdf Navigate to International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) Definition The ISCED definition in 1997 po ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fiscal Policy
In economics and political science, fiscal policy is the use of government revenue collection (taxes or tax cuts) and expenditure to influence a country's economy. The use of government revenue expenditures to influence macroeconomic variables developed in reaction to the Great Depression of the 1930s, when the previous laissez-faire approach to economic management became unworkable. Fiscal policy is based on the theories of the British economist John Maynard Keynes, whose Keynesian economics theorised that government changes in the levels of taxation and government spending influence aggregate demand and the level of economic activity. Fiscal and monetary policy are the key strategies used by a country's government and central bank to advance its economic objectives. The combination of these policies enables these authorities to target inflation (which is considered "healthy" at the level in the range 2%–3%) and to increase employment. Additionally, it is designed to try to k ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Washington Consensus
The Washington Consensus is a set of ten economic policy prescriptions considered to constitute the "standard" reform package promoted for crisis-wracked developing countries by Washington, D.C.-based institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and United States Department of the Treasury.Williamson, John"What Washington Means by Policy Reform", in: Williamson, John (ed.): ''Latin American Readjustment: How Much has Happened'', Washington: Peterson Institute for International Economics 1989. The term was first used in 1989 by English economist John Williamson. The prescriptions encompassed free-market promoting policies in such areas as macroeconomic stabilization, economic opening with respect to both trade and investment, and the expansion of market forces within the domestic economy. Subsequent to Williamson's use of the terminology, and despite his emphatic opposition, the phrase Washington Consensus has come to be used fairly widely in a second, b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
