Read more
List of contents
Introduction -- The Expansion of External Debt within the Less Developed Countries -- Introduction -- Debt and Default in the International Political Economy -- International Public Lending and American Policy -- Private Overseas Lending: Too Far, Too Fast? -- Financial Interrelations, the Balance of Payments, and the Dollar Crisis -- Debt and Development -- Introduction -- Bankers as Revolutionaries in the Process of Development -- Debt, Indenture, and Development -- Brazil’s Debt-Burdened Recession: Consequences of Short-Term Difficulties or of Structures of Production and Consumption? -- Political Economy of International Debt: The Dynamics of Financial Capital -- The Politics of International Debt Renegotiations -- Introduction -- Peru and the U.S. Banks: Privatization of Financial Relations -- The Politics of Debt Relief: Official Creditors and Brazil, Ghana, and Chile -- The Politics of Private Bank Lending and Debt Renegotiations -- The IMF, Commercial Banks, and Third World Debts
Summary
Scholars and practitioners from the fields of economics, political science, sociology, and government discuss the nature and importance of debt in the international system and question whether international debt is a necessary element of international development or a potential root of international economic collapse (and of the demise of the dollar as denominator of the monetary realm). They then turn specifically to the impact of external debt on developing countries, exploring the potential for both positive and negative effects. In the final section of the book they look at the interactions between debtors and creditors when loans begin to sour.
