International economic organizations and domestic economic policies: A study of the relationships of Colombia with the Economic Commission for Latin America, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund

The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA, now ECLAC to incorporate the Caribbean) are three of the major international economic organizations (IEOs) with which Colombia has had relations during the last four decades. The best known studies on the interactions of IEOs with developing countries usually grant to the former considerable amount of influence over the latter. On the other hand, the body of literature on the relationships of those IEOs with Colombia is sparse and offers conflicting viewpoints on their relative influence in the country's contemporary economic development. Some writings suggest that ECLA--a champion of heterodox growth policies in the 1950s and 1960s--has had considerable leverage in Colombia. Others, in contrast, assert that the World Bank--a consistent and staunch advocate of orthodox economic strategies--has been a dominant actor in the country's evolution.;The purpose of this study is to ascertain, by means of a process approach, the influence of those IEOs on Colombia's economic choices during the last four decades. The study analyzes the preferences of those organizations in the areas of trade, fiscal, and exchange rate policies; examines the policies effectively adopted by Colombia in these areas; discusses the extent to which such courses of action resemble and/or diverge from the actual preferences of those international organizations; examines the continuity of the relationships of those IEOs with Colombia's government, and analyzes specific instances of interactions between those organizations and Colombia's policy-makers.;The major finding of this study is that the actual influence of ECLA on Colombia's choices has been negligible, and that although the World Bank and the IMF have had comparatively more leverage, their power, nevertheless, has been far from overwhelming. One of the major implications of the study is that it challenges two generalizations: the first, that ECLA's influence in Latin American countries was significant, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s, and the second, that the power of the World Bank and the IMF in developing societies is uncontestable.