wto,imfand the closing of development policy space for low-income countries: A call for neo-developmentalism

The object of this paper is to locate and extend the debate on the closing of development ‘policy space’ for low-income countries. The location is in the broader context of the current debate in development economics among neoliberals and ‘neo-developmentalists’. The extension is via an investigation of the gap between the wto's bound and applied tariff rates. We hypothesise that countries that receive aid and are therefore subject to imf ‘conditionalities’ are more likely to have a wider gap between bound and applied rates. We find this to be the case, provide other evidence to demonstrate that the imf acts as an aggressive implementing mechanism for the wto, that the policy space has shrunk since the implementation of the Uruguay Round, and that this may have adversely affected manufacturing in low-income countries.