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Macroeconomic policies and sustainable development in the third World
Author(s) -
Hansen Stein
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
journal of international development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.533
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1099-1328
pISSN - 0954-1748
DOI - 10.1002/jid.3380020405
Subject(s) - sustainable development , environmental degradation , structural adjustment , macro , developing country , economics , economic policy , business , balance (ability) , macroeconomics , development economics , economic growth , political science , market economy , computer science , ecology , law , biology , programming language , medicine , physical medicine and rehabilitation
Adjustment and programme lending operations by the multilateral development banks and the IMF have been developed over the last decade in response to structural macroeconomic and sectorial problems and now constitute as much as 25 per cent of new lending. The central questions pertaining to such macro policies and the economic models developed and used by the agencies and governments in preparation for the design of such programmes are as follows:• Have adjustment operations caused environmental degradation? • Do their particular policy objectives make them a likely cause of such degradation? • Do they take enough account of environmental implications?Three studies have reviewed such operations by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank and the following answers represent how far our present understanding has progressed:• Far from being a major source of environmental degradation in developing countries, adjustment and programme lending operations appear, on balance, to have a bias in favour of the environment; • With adequate complementary measures to make sure they are implemented correctly, the policies can be manipulated to achieve environmental as well as economic objectives.