Policy advice in crisis: how inter-governmental organisations have responded to the GFC

Since the 1970s, key Inter-Governmental Organisations (IGO), notably the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), have subscribed to neo-liberal orthodoxy. This was evident, for example, in the labour market and macroeconomic policy prescriptions of the OECD Jobs Study (1994) and the IMF's imposition of structural adjustment policies during the Asian Financial Crisis (Feldstein, 1998). The next section provides background on the policy frameworks of the IMF and OECD prior to the crisis and their relationship to neo-liberalism. Details of the IGOs' policy responses to the ongoing Global Financial Crisis are then presented. Next, the principles of modern monetary theory are utilised to critique the collective failure of the IGOs in their policy advice to distinguish between sovereign and non-sovereign governments. The author then summarises the main arguments of the article and offer some concluding remarks.