DEVS 230 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Monetarism, Boiling Water Reactor, Financial Transaction

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Global Development Studies
• Course: DEVS 230
• Professor: Marc Epprecht

Document Summary

Using an ipe lens, discuss to what extent the demise of the bw regime led to the 1982 debt crisis. Remember: to think through how ideas, institutions and materiality shift and change during the 1970s to early 1980s. Fixed exchanged rate is removed after 1971, so the imf no longer has to oversee it. Isi and fordism forms of production in crisis. Financial markets turn to speculation rather than investing in manufacturing. Balance of payments problems (trade deficits), difficult to rectify without devaluation (fixed exchange rate = straight jacket) Debt-ridden countries turn to private banks, not imf. Two oil crises in 1970s = increased levels of inflation. Off-shore banks awash with excess dollars from oil exporting countries begin to facilitate over lending (speculation) to high risk debtor countries. Monetarism focuses on inflation not unemployment; unemployment is either voluntary or due to labour market regimes (union laws). Inflation harms financial markets more than manufacturing and general population.