IMF and World Bank Sponsored Structural Adjustment Programs in Africa: Ghana's Experience, 1983–1999 by KWADWO KONADU-AGYEMANG. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001, pp. 456).

✍ Scribed by Robert Osei

• Book ID: 102351835
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2003
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 31 KB
• Volume: 15
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0954-1748
• DOI: 10.1002/jid.942

✦ Synopsis

combined to cause the crisis-pegged exchange rates, liberalization of capital markets and inadequate financial regulation being the most important. In identifying appropriate responses Stiglitz returns to two earlier themes-corporate governance and government intervention (regulation and control). His conclusion is instructive: 'in approaching the challenges of globalization, we must eschew ideology and over-simplified models. We must not let the perfect be the enemy of the good ' (p. 193). This view may well highlight what is at the root of his disagreement with the IMF, whose stabilization policies are based on over-simplified ideological models. If Stiglitz has left a legacy at the Bank of giving more voice to the pragmatists he may not, after all, have been a rebel within.

Overall, this book is highly recommended: the essays are very well-written and argued with clarity, imbued with insights and often iconoclastic. Collectively, it amounts to a persuasive treatise on development policy. One can always find specific points, arguments or interpretations to disagree with, but few would disagree with the sentiment (except perhaps free market economists of the Chicago School variety). It is an excellent book on development economics for students of development, economists and non-economists alike.