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of reserves. This would imply a current account deficit.

      ²It was under 3.2% in the UK in 1920, helped perhaps by pent-up demand from the war years, and rose to 11.3% after the 1922 budget cuts and to 9.7% in 1927 (Eichengreen and Hatton, 1988). This experience is in contrast to the 33 years between 1880 and 1913, where the average rate of unemployment was 4.7% and for 21 years in this period it was lower than this (Moggridge, 1972). Also, see Orde (1990) for a discussion of performance in the immediate post-war years.

      ³For further details, see Myers (1945). For a discussion of economic and political ramifications of the Hungarian loan, see Orde (1990).

      ⁴For a discussion of the Austrian loan, see Warnock (2015).

      ⁵This should be compared to the Marshall Plan under which the US gave U$13 billion.

      ⁶The A and B Bonds represented the total German reparations liability of US$12 billion, an amount smaller than what Germany had offered to pay at the beginning of the negotiations.

      ⁷Germany made its last reparations payment of US$94 million on October 3, 2010, settling its outstanding debt from the 1919 Versailles Treaty and finally closing the reparations chapter.

      ⁸For a history of reparations, see Findley and Rothney (2006).

      ⁹The US and the UK agreed on the necessity to reduce reparations. The UK hoped that the US would also reduce their war debts. For a discussion of the Dawes Plan, see Orde (1990).

      ¹⁰The French government, by contrast, issued bonds worth 44,000,000,000 francs from 1919 to 1925 to finance reconstruction of its devastated regions.

      ¹¹Hegemonic theories can be divided into the realist school and the systemic school, which can be further sub-divided. Two dominant approaches in the realist school are exemplified by Keohane (1984) and Organski (1968). Modelski (1987) and Wallerstein (2004) are the two dominant approaches in the systemic school of thought. See Gilpin (1987) for a discussion of these theories. Also see Eichengreen (1996) and Cohen (2015).

      ¹²For details regarding the central bank lending to each other, see Agarwal (2017).

      ¹³Also see Flandreau (1997).

      ¹⁴The motives of the Banque de France in lending to the BE are analysed in Moure (2002).

      ¹⁵Their attitude towards the debts owed to them which they wanted paid in full was very different from that towards other debts and reparations. The British had borrowed on behalf of many others who lacked creditworthiness in the US market, and so its ability to repay its loans depended on it being repaid. The tough US negotiating stance then and later during and after World War II reflects the desire of US to eliminate the British challenge to their power.

      ¹⁶Under it the central banks would hold foreign currencies instead of gold. The British wanted them to hold sterling, which the French were not in favour of.

      ¹⁷For the French motivations, see Moure (1996).

      ¹⁸Later, the French had opposed the role of the dollar in the post-Second World War international monetary system. The then French president had wanted a return to gold to end what he called the “exorbitant privilege” of the US.

      ¹⁹More and more countries are adopting the framework of inflation targeting where the central has the responsibility of maintaining inflation in range and has to justify any failure.

      ²⁰See the discussion in Pittaluga based on an index of cooperation developed by Borio and Toniolo (2006).

      ²¹This struggle is best described in Costigliola (1977). Ahamed (2009) also describes these events in similar terms without drawing any conclusions about whether there was a struggle for supremacy.

      ²²The establishment of the GES can be seen, and the French saw it as an attempt to foist sterling on other central banks. Cooperation among central banks, many of the newer ones, was established with loans from England and was susceptible to English influence (Pittaluga).

      ²³They kept Russia on the sidelines and were helped by the German Russian agreement at Rapallo.

      ²⁴For instance, while in 1923–1924 Strong supported British plans that linked Austria and Hungary currencies to the British pound, the Americans balked at the British attempt to link the new German currency with sterling during the Dawes Plan negotiations.

      ²⁵The British ambassador to Washington summed up the problem in early 1921 as “the central ambition of American politicians is to be the leading nation in the world and also among the English-speaking nations. Apart from having the strongest navy and the largest mercantile marine they intend also to prevent us from paying our debt by sending goods to America and they look for the opportunity to treat us as a vassal State so long as the debt remains unpaid.” (Quoted in Costigliola, 1977, p. 913.)

      ²⁶The Bank of France was usually represented by the deputies as Moreau; the head did not speak English.

      ²⁷He provided a loan from the NY Fed of US$200 million to England and arranged for a loan of US$300 million from J.P. Morgan to provide reserves in case sterling came under pressure.

      ²⁸The French tried to convert their accumulated sterling reserves to gold in order to force England to renegotiate the war time loans.

      ²⁹It is interesting to speculate how the conference might have turned out if the negotiators from the United States had been able to offer war-debt cancellation, exchange stabilisation, tariff reduction and support for an IMF in order to obtain acceptance abroad of the cooperative recovery programme outlined in the president’s instructions to the United States delegation.

      ³⁰For a more sympathetic evaluation of Roosevelt’s reluctance to provide the public good of monetary stability, see Morrison (1993).

      ³¹It is important to remember that after the Asian crisis of 1997 a Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) run jointly by the IMF and the World Bank was started. Under it, the working of the financial sector was studied to see whether companies were following the rules recommended by the relevant international body.

      Furthermore, stress tests were conducted. Countries were subjected to such analysis. But the US refused to participate in any analysis of its financial system and we know that the 2008 crisis originated in the US financial system.

      ³²Even at the height of the recession the BIS was calling for an increase in the rate of interest and as the reason they gave was seen to be irrelevant they gave new reasons. It is perhaps because they believed that it was impossible to change the mindset of central bankers and their prejudices would be strengthened if there was a body such as the BIS, both Keynes and White had wanted the BIS abolished.

      ³³Even now the threats to multilateralism seem to be coming from the US. Earlier, the US had withdrawn from or not signed onto such multilateral initiatives as he law of the sea, the international court of justice or the Paris accord on climate change.

       Chapter 2

       The Economic Situation of Countries in Sub-Saharan Countries: What Can Be Done by the G20?

      Manmohan Agarwal

       Centre for Development Studies Thiruvananthapuram, India [email protected]

      Amrita Brahmo

       Research and Information Systems for Developing Countries, New Delhi, India [email protected]

       Abstract

      Economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has lagged behind that in other regions over the past half century (1965–2016). An earlier paper had shown that the hypotheses that

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