In this multimedia teaching resource package, filmed during Vi videoconferences for Tanzania and Colombia, UNCTAD’s Elissa Braunstein and Alfredo Calcagno present the findings of the 2015 Trade and Development Report (TDR), subtitled “Making the international financial architecture work for development.” The presentations, available in English and Spanish, take stock of developments in the global economy, focusing on the international financial markets, and propose policies to address the roots of the economic crisis.
“We still have a tepid recovery in developed countries and the risk of prolonged stagnation remains," Braunstein says. "The current policy mix in the developed countries – combining monetary expansion with fiscal and wage restraints – has been ineffective and generated negative spillovers to the rest of the world.”
“The current international financial architecture does not promote economic development,” asserts Calcagno, UNCTAD's TDR team leader. “Speculative capital flows fuel financial asset bubbles, excessive credit, currency appreciation in countries receiving large capital inflows, and a current account deficit that in turn creates uncertainties eventually leading to capital outflows,” he added.