This book represents the publication in book form of the author’s Ph.D. dissertation. It is a good effort showing mixed results. The book is only 154 pages of text, with tables, appendixes, endnotes, and the bibliography constituting the rest. There are also about 20 graphs and tables within the text. The style is somewhat colloquial, with profuse use of the first person.
The main point of the author is that the IMF is misguided in its policies with respect to less-developed countries (LDCs). It is not simply unintentionally wrong, but it is actually serving the interests of the advanced countries of the West, and particularly those of its dominant business interests and conservative viewpoints. The use of Peru is just incidental as a good example which, according to the author, illustrates his thesis.
The weakest chains in the author’s arguments are the initial chapters, which have the greatest economic content. The several pitfalls stem from an unscientific attack on the monetary theory as applied to international economics. The debate is still raging in the economic profession, and cannot he settled in the manner the author wishes. Sadly, it is totally unnecessary, as IMF policies anteceded the so-called monetary approach to the balance of payments, and are based on more orthodox monetary macroeconomics. In fact, the IMF analytical framework is a credo on its own, elaborated by an exclusive and seclusive sect of the institution’s economists and a select surrounding academic fringe.
The stronger parts of the volume are the ensuing two chapters (three and four) which establish the Peruvian case study. They show that similar external payments crises were dealt with, using equivalent economic targets and policies from the 1820s to the 1960s. There have only been changes in the institutional settings, ranging from colonial governments, through missions, to the IMF. The last three episodes considered, during the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s, represent excellent contributions in current history. All the characteristics of the IMF agreements with Peru are well dissected, and their deficiencies noted.
The book appears rather meager in its conclusions (only five pages long), partially due to an apparent lack of interest by the author, who left few summaries along the trail, and to the fact that no alternatives to the IMF are considered. Since the IMF’s limitations have been better documented in other essays, including the evaluation of alternative mechanisms, this book would be most appealing to Peruvian specialists.
