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This paper focuses on currency convertibility and the exchange rate system. The paper explains some of the factors involved in extending the freedom of currency convertibility, one of the IMF's principal policy aims. It highlights that the IMF's Articles of Agreement make the distinction between currency convertibility for residents and for nonresidents, but make it an obligation in principle to avoid restrictions on current payments of both categories. The paper also discusses management in developing countries as well as the link between growth and structural change.

This paper presents highlights of the 1964 annual meetings of the IMF and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The paper underscores that the charters of these organizations provide that they shall hold annual meetings of their Governors, who constitute the highest authority of each body. Although there are two principal institutions involved, and the special business of each is transacted separately, their annual meetings have always been held at the same time, and these joint meetings are in many respects a single and unified event.

This paper focuses on telecommunication development in Ethiopia. The paper highlights that there are now over 20,000 telephones in Addis Ababa (in 1969), but the demand for service still exceeds the supply. About 800 installation requests are received each quarter; of these, 600 can be fulfilled. Ethiopia's annual telephone growth rate has averaged 17 percent over the past six years. Though long-distance lines have been expanded by 125 percent since the early 1950s, the interurban network between Addis Ababa and the rest of the country is seriously overloaded.

This paper discusses infrastructure development and building of roads in Honduras. The paper highlights that in countries with backward transportation systems, the concept of “road” takes on an almost philosophical significance. The paper discusses the Western Highway in Honduras that was financed in 1961 by the first credit ever made by the International Development Association, the World Bank's soft-loan affiliate. Between its terminal points, the highway provides individuals of the area with reasonably easy access to markets, and is encouraging them to expand their agricultural production.

This paper analyzes economic implications of high rates of population growth in the world. The paper highlights that today, the world population is growing at a rate that is 30 times as high as the average rate of growth between the first century A.D. and 1650. In less developed countries, this rate is 40 times as high. In discussing the advantages that economic development derives when human fertility is reduced, the paper shows that while some commonly held beliefs about these are correct, others are out of touch with modern expert thinking.

This paper describes development of the agriculture sector in Northwest Mexico. The paper highlights that owing to the projects in the river valleys of the northwest and others throughout the country, Mexico grows enough to feed itself and to export in substantial quantity. A third of the crops are produced on the 13 percent of cultivable area now under irrigation. The engineers of Hydraulic Resources are proud of their achievements; they have the visual evidence and the statistics to prove the importance of their contribution to Mexico.

This paper discusses origins of recent estimates of capital requirements for development and highlights some of the issues involved. The paper highlights that there are two possible approaches to making estimates of capital requirements for development. Both approaches are based on the idea that increased income and wealth depend fundamentally upon the application of more capital, either to increase output directly when used in combination with local resources, or indirectly when the use of such capital will lead to a more effective use of other resources.

This paper discusses ways in which countries can invest most profitably in an industry that is capable of providing massive help to their economies. The paper highlights that tourism, like other economic activities, flourishes best when it fits into a context of general economic policies and programs designed to lead to the optimum growth of the economy as a whole. For this, some sort of national planning—at least in setting priorities and seeing that they are emphasized—is required to create a climate for productive investment in all suitable fields.

This paper describes what is a “World Bank Project.” The paper highlights that by the 1960s, the concept of a “project” had already widened. Starting in the late 1950s, the World Bank began expanding its lending into new sectors; today, the Bank lends for a wide variety of projects in agriculture, education, population planning, tourism, telecommunications, and water supply in addition to projects for electric power, transportation, and industry. Agricultural lending, in terms of the number of projects, is now the single most important sector.

This paper presents a description of the Project Analysis Course offered by the World Bank's Economic Development Institute (EDI). The main objective of EDI is to give individuals a general understanding of all the main elements involved in preparing, evaluating, and executing development projects. At the end of the course, EDI expects graduates to be able to help design project studies or to participate in the overall evaluations on which final decisions are heavily based.

This paper presents highlights of the IMF Meetings in 1968. The main themes of the IMF Annual Meeting were referred to by President Lyndon B. Johnson of the United States in his address at the opening joint session. He described 1968 as “a year of crisis in financial markets,” and the special drawing rights facility as a “major step in international financial cooperation.” Many IMF Governors returned to the theme that the containment of the potentially disruptive consequences of the events of the past year was due chiefly to a remarkable degree of international cooperation and collaboration.

This paper examines the export performance of developing countries. Taking any recent period, for example the past 15 years, the growth rate in export earnings for individual countries has varied from substantial year-to-year increases to absolute declines. Countries with growth rates as high as 13 percent per year include Greece, Jamaica, and Peru, while at the other end of the spectrum are Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay, whose export earnings declined in absolute terms.

This paper discusses the 1966 Annual Meetings of the IMF and of the World Bank and its affiliates, the International Development Association (IDA) and the International Finance Corporation. The annual meetings were held in September in Washington. The widespread shortage of capital and rising interest rates were described as posing problems for the Bank's own borrowings as well as for developing countries. Mr. George D. Woods, the President, stressed the allied problem of the urgent need for a substantial replenishment of the resources available to IDA.

China's efforts to stimulate industrial development and economic growth through the allocation of investments are analyzed. Cheng concludes with an overall assessment of the distinctive features of the allocation pattern. Includes 41 statistical tables.

This volume appears at a time when there is tremendous interest in direct investment of one country in the industry of another. It brings together papers by leading economists from North America, Australia and Asia, and provides an excellent introduction to this currently important economic issue. The contributions include original and comprehensive surveys of experience with, and policies towards, direct foreign investment in the Asian-Pacific region. Of particular interest are the discussion of investment within and from Japan and the synthesis of studies on North America, Australia, and the developing Asian countries. The book is a valuable guide for policy-makers and businessmen, and should serve as an essential text for students of foreign investment. General readers will find answers here to many questions on the economics of countries which encourage foreign investment or invest considerably outside their own shores.

This paper describes the origin of the IMF, its organization, and its method of working. The IMF has as its aim the economic prosperity of the whole world. The IMF pursues an active program of economic research. For this purpose, it systematically collects and publishes data on international trade, holdings of gold and foreign currencies, national income, price indices, restrictions on international payments, international movements of capital, and so on. All this is part of the background against which discussions of problems of individual members are carried out by the Executive Board.

This is the second in a series of three articles describing the Fund's efforts to promote economic development. The importance of Fund consultations with member countries is explained, along with the provision of technical assistance and the use of Fund resources under several programs.

For the latest thinking about the international financial system, monetary policy, economic development, poverty reduction, and other critical issues, subscribe to Finance & Development (F&D). This lively quarterly magazine brings you in-depth analyses of these and other subjects by the IMF's own staff as well as by prominent international experts. Articles are written for lay readers who want to enrich their understanding of the workings of the global economy and the policies and activities of the IMF.

Originally published in 1952. In this fascinating book that examines the statistics, the term food supplies is interpreted in a wide sense and it deals among other matters with such subjects as supplies from home agriculture and from overseas; food consumption; controls, rationing and price regulations, and Government purchasing of food. Included are chapters on world food supplies, international organizations concerned with food and agriculture, and development schemes in the Commonwealth and colonies. Food supply from the eighteenth century onwards is outlined and the dependence on imported food is discussed.

Here is an introduction to the study of the international economy as a mechanism for diffusing modern economic growth between nations. It is divided into three parts, of which the first examines the workings of the system in the years before 1914. This includes an analysis of the conditions favorable to the growth of international economic relations during the period, examines the changing character of the international flows of labor, capital and trade, and surveys contemporary commercial and international monetary policies. This first part concludes with a chapter analyzing the international economy as a mechanism for diffusing economic growth, and another chapter examining the nature of the economic trends and fluctuations associated with this phase in the growth of the international economic system.The second part gives an account of the collapse of the international economy during the interwar years, and traces the causes of collapse to changes in the structure and functioning of the system brought about by World War I and the depression of the 1930s.The final part takes the story beyond World War II. It describes the wartime and post-war efforts to reconstruct the international economic system, and examines the working of the new system in the period after 1945, bringing out both its strengths and its weaknesses.Both the authors are Senior Lecturers in Economics at the University of Queensland, one specializing in Economic History, and the other in International Trade. Between them they have written a textbook of very high quality and one likely to be a great help to students.

The development of the Mexican financial system as it has related to the remarkable growth of the Mexican economy is examined in this book. Believing that a better understanding of the past will permit a more nearly accurate appraisal of contemporary problems and facilitate the choice of intelligent policies in the future, the authors present a detailed chronicle and analysis of components of the Mexican financial system, with primary emphasis on the period from 1940 to the mid-1960s. Separate chapters are devoted to the money and capital market, the formulation and execution of monetary and financial policies, and the nature of Mexican financial experience in both the public and private sectors of the economy. The authors offer a theoretical explanation of the record of Mexican experience, based upon their analysis of relationships between monetary policy, domestic stability, and external equilibrium, as well as upon their analysis of factors governing the growth of domestic indebtedness, the development of financial intermediation, and the operation of the loanable funds market. The final chapter of the book, a review of Mexican experience from 1960 to 1965, speculates with respect to the future course of Mexican financial development and offers specific proposal for future monetary and financial policies. This record of Mexican financial development contains much that should be of interest to others engaged in related theoretical and empirical studies, including many lessons for those countries confronted with circumstances and problems not too unlike those encountered in Mexico.

As every schoolboy knows, Canada is one of the larger trading countries of the world but, from the point of view of balancing her international merchandise trade payments, she does not export enough. The purpose of this book is to describe, not in broad economic terms, but in daily practical detail, the work of the exporter and importer. Pitfalls abound for the unwary trader, and Mr. Arnold knows them all. His book is written about the activities of an export merchant, since he, unlike his confrères in a larger type of organization, deals directly himself with banks, brokers, suppliers, shippers, buyers, insurance agents, freight forwarders, and the other agencies serving the exporter and importer. Thus the reader acquires an all-round understanding of the trader's business world. The book is written with admirable directness and clarity, with an astute and alert business sense underlying the writing. The book will also make useful reading for any student of international trade theory and would be especially helpful to commerce classes and to trainees in business firms of all kinds associated with Canadian trade.

In an attempt to maintain self-sufficiency, both Canadian and American federal authorities have imposed a number of restrictions on the inter-country flows of natural gas in North America -- tariffs, export and import permits, and quotas. The purpose of this study is to estimate how much less final consumers would pay for natural gas if free trade were allowed. A linear programming model is used to estimate a hypothetical flow pattern when no restrictions are placed on trans-border flows of gas. In comparing this free trade solution to a simulation of the actual flow pattern under trade restrictions, the costs to final consumers can be estimated. In addition, the regional gains and losses to producers can be measured. A chapter is devoted to investigating both the balance of payments effects of free trade adn the impact of the Canadian tariff on natural gas which existed from 1924 to 1967. A technique is devised to estimate the tariff necessary to prevent entry into the domestic market by foreign suppliers. The book should be of great interest to teachers of programming, economists, people in government, and individuals concerned about the effects of a continental energy policy.

For the latest thinking about the international financial system, monetary policy, economic development, poverty reduction, and other critical issues, subscribe to Finance & Development (F&D). This lively quarterly magazine brings you in-depth analyses of these and other subjects by the IMF's own staff as well as by prominent international experts. Articles are written for lay readers who want to enrich their understanding of the workings of the global economy and the policies and activities of the IMF.

Fact and Fancy in International Economic Relations: An Essay on International Monetary Reform is written during 1971-2 in collaboration with Peter Balacs. It is a sequel to the Theoretical Introduction to, and the Historical Analysis of, a collection of essays Unequal Partners. This essay rebuts in particular the view that full employment and stability could be reconciled by, on the one hand, a combination of monetary and fiscal policies, and, on the other, the adoption of floating (or'crawling'or'adjustable') exchange rates. Emphasis is placed on the importance of the given historical situation, of the pattern of anticipations, in determining the outcome of the readjustment process after some disruption.

First Published in 1966. Japan is now one of the leading industrial nations of the world, yet its economy and its industry are still described as ‘dualistic'. Huge combines co-exist with thousands of small businesses, and there are wide gaps in productivity and wages, gaps which are not present to anything like the same extent in the most advanced economies of the West. This essay explores some of the contrasts in Japanese industrial structure.

Inflation is the economic plague of the modern world, completely undermining conventional theory and policies for its containment, and setting governments, management and labour on a dangerous collision course. Its alarming spread is only paralleled by the expansion of multinational corporations, some of them more economically powerful than nation states. This book, first published in 1971, provided a totally new perspective on these phenomena, linking them in a common theory based on a thorough analysis of the modern role of capital financing in the global economy. It demonstrates the impact of technology on self-financing growth and explains why inflation can never ben stemmed by attacks on wage costs when the source lies in the need of managements to maximise cash flows. Alternative economic policies are discussed, including proposals for creating assets for workers in the self-financing investment. Charles Levinson draws together the strands of his subject in a way which is comprehensive and rigorous, yet easily accessible to the more general reader. The conclusions reached in Capital Inflation and the Multinationals are still of great interest and relevance to professional economists and students, political practitioners and commentators.