Research

Article in Future of Development Studies Special Issue, European Journal for Development and Research, 2025. 

The decolonisation of development studies and knowledge in general has become a very popular conversation. However, the idea of decolonisation is rather ill-defined in academia, with a variety of arguably unrelated initiatives being pursued in the interest of decolonising development studies. This paper defines what decolonising development studies entails by arguing that development studies is characterized by eurocentrism. Specifically, I argue that the idea of development in development studies is that of the development of capitalism, which is seen to have developed in Europe due to largely intrinsic European characteristics related to resource availability, labour productivity, and institutions. Therefore, much of the discourse of development is based on this implicit idea that the periphery can and should follow this path of progress. However, this is a path of development is mythical, and ignores the role played by colonialism and the slave trade, and the transformation of social relations. And since the Eurocentric understanding of the development of capitalism in the capitalist centre is the epistemological norm for development, the periphery can only be understood as aberrant from the ideal developmental norm. This compromises our understanding of the process of development. This article argues that decolonising development studies means dismantling the dominance of Eurocentric theories, methodologies, and approaches in development studies and to challenge the structural exclusions in development studies that supports and legitimizes Eurocentrism, and in turn, imperialism.

(with Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven and Surbhi Kesar) in Economic and Political Weekly, Volume 59, Issue 42, 2024. 

By providing an easy and elegant “answer” to the complex process of development, albeit a wrong one, Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson’s rise to prominence has lent support to a very particular understanding of development that is now prevalent in the discipline. It also provided an easy, unfalsifiable, and arguably racist narrative of underdevelopment, that reinforces Eurocentrism and a colonial world view.  The awarding of the Nobel Prize in Economics to AJR once again reveals the insular nature of the discipline, and its resistance to fundamental change and improvement, apart from very narrow changes in methodology.

Republished on IDEAs. French Translation. Spanish Translation. Farsi Translation. 

(with Mariana Mazzucato and Els Torreelle) in Bulletin of the World Health Organization, Volume 102, Issue 5. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) set up the messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) technology transfer programme in June 2021 with a development hub in South Africa and 15 partner vaccine producers in middle-income countries. The goal was to support the sustainable development of and access to life-saving vaccines for people in these countries as a means to enhance epidemic preparedness and global public health. This initiative aims to build resilience and strengthen local vaccine research, and development and manufacturing capacity in different regions of the world, especially those areas that could not access coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines in a timely way. This paper outlines the current global vaccine market and summarizes the findings of a case study on the mRNA technology transfer programme conducted from November 2022 to May 2023. The study was guided by the vision of the WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All to build an economy for health using its four work streams of value, finance, innovation and capacity. Based on the findings of the study, we offer a mission-oriented policy framework to support the mRNA technology transfer programme as a pilot for transformative change towards an ecosystem for health innovation for the common good. Parts of this vision have already been incorporated into the governance of the mRNA technology transfer programme, while other aspects, especially the common good approach, still need to be applied to achieve the goals of the programme.

(with Kevin P. Gallagher) in International Journal of Political Economy, Volume 51, Issue 3, 2022. 

This article examines the extent to which the latest wave of trade and investment treaties has impacted the fiscal stability of the world’s nations. We construct two new measures of trade liberalization based on the importance of a country in the global network of trade and investment treaties, namely the number of trade treaty links and the hub connectedness of a country. This analysis is important since many analyses of the welfare impacts of trade liberalization typically do not consider the impact on the fiscal balances of governments or assume that any loss of tariff revenue would be made up by the imposition of indirect taxes, like a Value Added Tax. Using a cross-country regression analysis, we confirm that trade liberalization has, on average, reduced the amount of tariff revenue collected. Furthermore, trade liberalization is not correlated with an automatic compensation for lost tariff revenue through other taxation measures. We find, in some cases, that trade and investment treaties are correlated with a reduction in total fiscal revenues and an increase in government debt. These results suggest that policymakers need to take the fiscal impacts of trade and investment liberalization into account when making decisions about trade and investment policy. 

Link to International Journal of Political Economy. Please email me for a pdf if you are unable to access it. 

Working Paper version available here.

(with Kevin P. Gallagher and Rachel D. Thrasher) in Global Policy Journal, Volume 11, Issue 3, 2020. 

This paper evaluates the evidence as regards the extent to which trade liberalization has led to a decline in tariff revenue, total tax revenue, government expenditure, and government debt. Conventional theory generally predicts that when tariff losses do occur, they may be recouped through better forms of taxation – though a more sophisticated body of theory suggests otherwise. The empirical evidence is also mixed. Theory driven ex‐ante models of trade liberalization assume that trade agreements are revenue neutral. Ex‐post studies suggest that theory may hold in advanced and upper middle‐income economies. However, the consequences for lower income countries are a matter for concern. The majority of the evidence finds that low income countries lose trade tax revenue and are unable to recoup much of that lost revenue. At a time when fresh bilateral trade and investment treaties are being negotiated and WTO reform is on the global policy agenda, this paper highlights the need to design a treaty regime that enhances the ability of poorer nations to mobilize domestic resources without jeopardizing fiscal and financial stability. 

Link to Global Policy Journal. Please email me for a pdf if you are unable to access it. 

(with Gerald Epstein) in Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance- Financial Innovation and Resiliency: A Comparative Perspective on the Public Banks of Naples (1462-1808), edited by Lilia Costabile and Larry Neal.

This paper explores whether financial institutions with a ‘public orientation’, including state owned banks and non-profit financial institutions, behaved ‘more socially productively’ than private financial institutions in the run-up and aftermath of the Great Financial Crisis of 2007-2008 (GFC). By ‘more socially productively’ in this context we mean, more specifically, whether they acted less ‘pro-cyclically’ (or more ‘counter-cyclically’) than other financial institutions, and therefore were a stabilizing force in this recent destructive financial episode.  We conclude that there is significant evidence for this conjecture: over-all, public banks' lending and socially oriented financial institutions such as socially responsible investment funds, behaved less pro-cyclically than did other financial institutions. We analyse reasons why this was the case and speculate about whether a larger footprint for public financial institutions in our economies would provide a stabilizing force without sacrificing much in terms of economic growth.

Chapter in The Political Economy of International Finance in an Age of Inequality, edited by Gerald Epstein, 2018

Central Banks around the world increasingly intervene in the foreign exchange market for a variety of reasons, such as maintaining exchange rate stability. In fact, research shows that central banks can lean against the macroeconomic policy trilemma through maintaining reserves and intervening in the foreign exchange market, and secure policy space. However, securing this policy space can come at substantial cost. In particular, there are substantial costs associated both with building and holding reserves of foreign exchange and using reserves to intervene in the foreign exchange market. This paper calculates the cost of foreign exchange intervention undertaken by central banks around the world, and examines how these costs are affected by country characteristics. The paper shows that foreign exchange intervention and the cost associated with it has increased substantially since the 1990s. Moreover, this cost is higher for developing and emerging economies, countries with more open capital accounts, and countries with access to a de factor international lender of last resort. The paper also makes policy recommendations for mitigating the costs of foreign exchange intervention.

(with Shahra Razavi, Helmut Schwarzer, Fabio Duran-Valverde, and Isabel Ortiz) International Labour Organization Working Paper 42, December 2021. 

This paper explores whether there has been a change in International Monetary Fund (IMF) policy advice and conditions in its loan programmes and Article IV surveillance by examining the 148 country reports for IMF programmes in 2020, in the context of significant shifts in its global macroeconomic policy framework during the COVID-19 pandemic. It documents the policy recommendations made in these reports and finds that the IMF has supported increased expenditure on health care and cash transfer programmes, often on a temporary basis, even when it meant higher fiscal deficit and public debt. However, it also finds that the IMF has supported fiscal consolidation and reduction of public debt even more frequently, in 129 of the 148 reports examined. This seems to corroborate the findings of a number of recent studies.

Given the pronounced gaps in social protection coverage, comprehensiveness and adequacy across all countries, it is essential that the measures taken to cope with the emergency do not remain a mere stopgap response, but progressively lead to the establishment or strengthening of rights-based national social protection systems, including floors. To do so, countries can and should pursue diverse financing options that are equitable in order to mobilize the financial resources needed for social investments, including investments in social protection systems and quality public services. 

You can download it here.

As the issuers of the global reserve currency, the U.S. dollar, the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury are the de facto international lender of last resort (ILLR) institutions in the global economy. Access to emergency liquidity in the U.S. Dollar is the most effective aspect of the global financial safety net. However, only some countries have access to the international lenders of last resort. In this paper, we explore the selective provision of emergency lending provided by the Federal Reserve, in the form of Reciprocal Currency Arrangements or swap lines, and in the form of a short term loan from the U.S. Treasury's Exchange Stabilization Fund. Furthermore, we investigate the economic and political factors in explaining the differential support provided by these lenders of last resort and the conditions under which this support is extended. We provide a historical account of the evolution of the role these ILLR institutions have played since 1962, and how the relationship between the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury has changed in this regard. Thereafter, we estimate a panel logit model to assess the relative importance of several economic and political factors in explaining access to ILLR institutions between 1982 and 2018. We find that several political factors like capital account openness, trade and defense agreements with the United States, and party composition of the United States government play an important role in determining access to the ILLR institutions. We also confirm that the relative exposure of the assets of U.S. banks to an economy and an economy's share in US exports also play an important role. Therefore, this paper shows that even though these ILLR institutions are the only ones that have the capacity to serve as the International Lender of Last Resort, the extension of ILLR support is exercised in a discretionary and politically strategic manner.

You can download it here

Political Economy Research Institute Working Paper Number 446, December 2017. 

This paper examines whether greater prevalence of government-owned banks leads to qualitatively different outcomes. By reviewing the extensive literature on government-owned banks, the paper determines whether greater government participation in the financial system leads to greater financial stability and greater provision of finance for welfare generating activities. The evidence in literature suggests that the effects of government participation in the financial system are complex and context-dependent. This paper finds that while government banks not only provide finance that privately owned banks fail to provide and finance long-term projects that contribute to the capital development of an economy, they are also a stabilizing counter-cyclical influence in the economy. However, there is evidence to show that in several instances, government-owned banks have been used by politicians for the achievement of political goals. The paper also identifies gaps in the literature on government-owned banks, and avenues for future research. 

You can download the paper here.

[Draft: Please do not cite without permission]

Central Banks around the world increasingly intervene in the foreign exchange market for a variety of reasons, such as providing a protective buffer in the event of a sudden stop or reversal of capital flows. As a result, there has been an unprecedented accumulation of foreign exchange reserves on the balance sheets of central banks around the world, especially in developing and emerging economies. Therefore, several central banks have built some capacity to act as a lender of last resort, even when emergency liquidity required is not denominated in their own currency, thereby reducing the probability of default by borrowers in their country in the event of a financial crises. This paper examines whether the accumulation of reserves due to foreign exchange intervention can be counterproductive by encouraging the inflow of volatile capital flows that are linked to the occurrence of financial crises. Using panel data regression analysis, this paper finds that episodes of high reserve accumulation are likely to be followed by surges in inflows of capital within one year and five years, and a heightened probability of the occurrence of a currency crisis within five years. However, a higher level of foreign exchange reserve accumulation is associated with a lower probability of systemic banking crises.

You can download it here.

 (with Rachel D. Thrasher) Global Economic Governance Initiative Policy Brief 012,  July 2020.

You can access the policy brief here.