Papers by bhumika muchhala
Gender & Development, May 4, 2022
Development
The current era of financial hegemony is characterized by a dense financial actor concentration, ... more The current era of financial hegemony is characterized by a dense financial actor concentration, an exacerbated reliance of many South countries on private credit and an internalized compliance of South states to financial market interests and priorities. This structural power of finance enacts itself through disciplinary mechanisms, such as credit ratings and economic surveillance, compelling many South states to respond to creditor interests at the expense of peoples' needs. As a human rights paradigm, the Declaration on the Right to Development has the active potential to redress the structural power of finance and the distortion of the role of the state through upholding the creation of an enabling international environment for equitable and rights-based development on two levels of change. First, structural policy reforms in critical areas of debt, fiscal policy, tax, trade, capital flows and credit rating agencies. Second, systemic transformation through delinking as articulated by dependency theorist Samir Amin, which entails a reorientation of national development strategies away from the imperatives of globalization to that of economic, social, and ecological priorities and interests of people.
Nature Ecology & Evolution, 2022
In the version of this article initially published, the second sentence of the "Multilateral tax ... more In the version of this article initially published, the second sentence of the "Multilateral tax reform" section referring to financial losses to governments was unclear. It has been clarified to state that it is tax havens in general, not only tax avoidance by Fortune 500 companies, that cost governments USD 500-600 billion a year in lost taxation. It has also been corrected to refer to an estimated loss of USD 200 billion to non-OECD economies rather than to low-income countries. The changes have been made to the HTML and PDF versions of the article.
Nature ecology & evolution, 2021
This index covers all technical items-papers, correspondence, reviews, etc.-that appeared in this... more This index covers all technical items-papers, correspondence, reviews, etc.-that appeared in this periodical during 2021, and items from previous years that were commented upon or corrected in 2021. Departments and other items may also be covered if they have been judged to have archival value. The Author Index contains the primary entry for each item, listed under the first author's name. The primary entry includes the coauthors' names, the title of the paper or other item, and its location, specified by the publication abbreviation, year, month, and inclusive pagination. The Subject Index contains entries describing the item under all appropriate subject headings, plus the first author's name, the publication abbreviation, month, and year, and inclusive pages. Note that the item title is found only under the primary entry in the Author Index.
The recent global financial and economic crisis has opened up new opportunities to mobilize resou... more The recent global financial and economic crisis has opened up new opportunities to mobilize resources for development finance and reform the structures of the global monetary system in a way that would eliminate distortions and benefit all countries. The recourse of the G20 in April 2009 to a call for a general allocation of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) by the IMF – the first in a generation – persuaded many government officials in developing countries, as well as advocates for development, that SDRs can be an effective tool not only for building reserves, but also for financing development and meeting urgent liquidity needs. The work of the UN Stiglitz Commission and the discussions around the UN Conference on the Global Financial & Economic Crisis articulated significant support for expanding the scope of SDRs. While prudence would be required in utilizing SDRs, there is potential for using this resource, which costs nothing to create, in creative ways. Greater amounts of SDRs sh...
World Development
Abstract With the increasing importance of ‘emerging powers’ in the global economy, questions are... more Abstract With the increasing importance of ‘emerging powers’ in the global economy, questions are raised about the role of developing countries in shaping global norms. The assumption in much of the literature has been to see global norms as originating in the ‘North’ (or the ‘West’). Recent research has begun to challenge this view. This paper contributes to this debate in studying the agency of the South in the adoption of sustainable development as the consensus framework for international development (SDGs). Based on documentary and archival research, interviews with stakeholders, and direct participant observation of the SDG negotiations and consultations, the paper chronicles the ideas originating from the South in the emergence and subsequent evolution of the sustainable development concept and the adoption of the SDGs. We highlight the role of key individuals as norm entrepreneurs at the origin of sustainable development as they challenged the North-led understanding of the environmental challenge in the 1970s and 1980s, and the agency of Southern actors in proposing an alternative vision as a successor to the MDGs. We chronicle the agency of Southern actors in promoting some key priorities of sustainable development. We argue that these ideas originated from the perspective of the knowledge, lived experience, policy experience, theorizing and analysis of the Global South. We find that norm entrepreneurship involved contesting mainstream views and advancing marginalized ideas. The case also illustrates international norm emergence as a long term process of contestation and evolution.
Economic and Political Weekly, Nov 14, 2014
Development, 2012
Two areas in the international economic and financial architecture that impede the realization of... more Two areas in the international economic and financial architecture that impede the realization of developmental objectives and gender equity are briefly focused on, and include the contractionary macroeconomic policy framework espoused by the International Monetary Fund, the trend of financial liberalization and the volatility of capital flows and problems caused by it. The international financial architecture's exclusive concern with the monetized financial and commodity economy overlooks numerous adverse impacts on women and girls, in large part because it is based on fundamental gender biases. Bhumika Muchhala recalls from feminist economics literature three systemic gender biases in a liberalized and financialized world economy, which work against the goals of gender equity and women's rights. These three biases are the ‘deflationary bias’, the ‘male breadwinner bias’ and the ‘commodification or privatization bias’. She argues that a feminist discourse of global capitali...
This Special Report asks whether multilateral economic policies constrain the ability of developi... more This Special Report asks whether multilateral economic policies constrain the ability of developing countries to choose the best mix of economic polices for achieving sustainable and equitable development. Jomo Kwame Sundaram illustrates the significance of policy space for national development strategies, and assesses the principal sources of constraints imposed by international financial institutions (IFIs) on policy space in developing countries. Heiner Flassbeck contends that intermediate exchange rate regimes and the development of a multilateral framework for exchange rates would enable developing countries to better align their monetary policies with their development priorities. Carlos Correa links intellectual property rights (IPR) rules in the global trade regime to equitable development by presenting several counter-arguments to the dominant proposition that IPRs are necessary to promote knowledge and innovation, and by providing a historical analysis of IPR policy. Elain...
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Papers by bhumika muchhala