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Conventional wisdom says that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) functions as the de facto international lender of last resort (ILLR) for the global financial system. However, that premise is incomplete. Brother, Can You Spare a Billion? explores how the U.S. has for decades regularly complemented the Fund's ILLR role by selectively providing billions of dollars in emergency loans to foreign economies in crisis. Why would the U.S. ever put national financial resources at risk to "bail out" foreign countries? McDowell argues that the U.S. has been compelled to provide such rescues unilaterally when it believes the IMF's multilateral response is too slow or too small to protect vital U.S. economic interests. Through a combination of historical case studies and statistical analysis, McDowell uncovers the defensive motives behind U.S. decisions to provide global liquidity from the 1960s through the 2008 global financial crisis. Moving beyond conventional wisdom, this book paints a complete picture of how international financial crises have been managed and highlights the unique role the U.S. has played in stabilizing the world economy in troubled times.
List of contents
- Table of Figures
- Table of Tables
- Preface
- List of Abbreviations
- CHAPTER 1 - Introduction
- CHAPTER 2 - The ILLR in Theory and Practice
- CHAPTER 3 - The United States Invents its Own ILLR, 1961-1962
- CHAPTER 4 - The Exchange Stabilization Fund and the IMF in the 1980s and 1990s
- CHAPTER 5 - Who's In, Who's Out, and Why? Selecting Whom to Bailout, 1983-1999
- CHAPTER 6 - U.S. International Bailouts in the 1980s and 1990s
- CHAPTER 7 - The United States as ILLR during the Great Panic of 2008-2009
- CHAPTER 8 - Conclusions
- BIBLIOGRAPHY
- APPENDIX
About the author
Daniel McDowell is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. His work has been published in International Studies Quarterly, Review of International Organizations, and New Political Economy.
Summary
Brother, Can You Spare a Billion? explores how and why the U.S. has regularly acted, often alongside the IMF, as an international lender of last resort by selectively bailing out foreign economies in crisis. Daniel McDowell highlights the unique role that the U.S. has played in stabilizing the world economy from the 1960s through 2008.
Additional text
The book offers novel insights into the unique role that the United States has played in stabilizing international financial crises, while also shedding light on the limitations of the IMF to act as an ILLR. McDowell's writing style is clear and easy to comprehend for both experts and nonexperts alike, and the book's rich case studies help provide useful context to key findings discovered in the statistical analyses." - Perspectives on Politics
