The mood at the International Monetary Fund-World Bank Spring Meetings 2023, according to Richard Kozul-Wright (Director of the Globalisation and Development Strategies Division at...
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The mood at the International Monetary Fund-World Bank Spring Meetings 2023, according to Richard Kozul-Wright (Director of the Globalisation and Development Strategies Division at UNCTAD), was decidedly more upbeat than it had been at the last meeting in fall 2022. ‘The outlook is reasonably bright’ stated Janet Yellen, the US Treasury Secretary. Despite what IMF economists had described as a dangerous global debt burden last year, the urgency of dealing with it — according to Kozul-Wright — seemed to have dissipated. On Friday morning, the entrance hall of IMF Headquarter 2 was filled with music. Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF managing director, closely accompanied by security guards, clapped in enthusiasm in front of the Moroccan singer. A week earlier, the Kingdom of Morocco, host of the forthcoming autumn meeting in Marrakesh, had been granted a $3 billion precautionary line by the IMF. At the G-30 meeting, nested within the spring meeting, the keynote address by the American economist Jason Furman was devoted to discussing inflation in the US. He did not discuss global debt in which G-30 initiatives had played a leading role in the last couple of years. When asked about the effects of the dollar, Furman said that the world was very dollarized and that he actually didn’t care that much. He explained that a structurally appreciated exchange rate conferred costs not only on the rest of the world but on the US itself. He repeated that he didn’t care quite so much as he should were he a finance minister.