Economic Crisis Management in Developing

This course will analyze the way developing countries manage major economic crises, and what support they get (or don’t get) from the international community. It will look at both crises a global character (the 2008-09 global financial crisis, the COVID-19, and the current crisis) as well as those specific to developing countries (the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s, and the crisis of emerging economies that sparked off in East Asia in 1997).

It will start with a couple of lectures on the domestic and international factors that trigger crises, as well as the role of the major institutions in charge of cooperation, the two Bretton Woods institutions (the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank), their regional partners, and the informal groupings of major countries that are crucial for decision-making (the G-7 and the G-20). It will then analyze the major crises in historical order: the Latin American debt crisis, the East Asian crisis, the North Atlantic financial crisis, the COVID-19 crisis, and the current crisis that mixes geopolitical issues with an economic crisis.

The analyses of crisis will take the form of presentation and debates among students, after an initial presentation by the professor. It will end with a discussion of what we have learnt from crisis management and the ongoing debate on the way forward.

Although the focus would be the management of the specific issues relevant to developing countries, the seminar will not ignore policies that are adopted by developed countries but have global effects.