REVIEW ARTICLE 117 countries. This makes the process of rectification of imbalances not only one-sided but doubly difficult for deficit developing countries. The World Bank began structural adjustment lending in the early 1980s, and since then SALs (structural adjustment loans, extending to the whole economy) and SECALs (sectoral adjustment loans, referring to a particular sector such as agriculture or energy) have been extended to more than 40 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. This volume covers the experience of most of them, aggregatively in the policy chapters, while nine case studies are singled out for detailed discussion. The first thing that strikes the observer is the sheer spread of policies that are covered in the conditions for such loans, and the level of details specified. The conditions range from actual fiscal targets to specified values and quantities for taxation and other fiscal devices, exact changes in exchange rates, tariffs and other trade measures, nature of financial sector reform including the timing, the extent of required increase in public enterprise output prices and which enterprises should be sold or closed, the pattern of agricultural pricing and desired movement in intersectoral terms of trade, etc. This amounts to the takeover of virtually the entire economic policy making of a country, by a handful of external bureaucrats whose familiarity with the context is at t>est sketchy. The extent of control exercised by these outsiders is even more disturbing when one considers that these 'experts* do not spend longer than a few years being concerned with any one country, so that very often they may not even be aware of the numerous problems caused by the policies they have forced through in individual countries. Also, the arrogant idea that a few foreign experts are likely to know better what is good for the country than the representatives of democratically elected governments or any other groups in the society, cannot be refuted when the experts concerned are no longer around to face the music domestically. This being the case, the casual way in which past mistakes are admitted in this volume is disturbing, especially when there is no evidence that current and fresh loans are being granted with any greater degree of sensitivity or concern for the welfare of the citizens of the recipient country. Thus, in the Preface, the Vice-President of the Bank admits that there has been inadequate recognition of the specific country contexts of the reforms and of the institutional elements of adjustment—yet World Bank motivated policies continue to be generally the same for all cases and continue to ignore the institutional and class backgrounds within which 'reforms' occur. The mood of sudden discovery of facts which have been well known to most economists and others in developing countries for a very long time pervades the chapters on specific policies. Thus, in the discussion on public finance, the basic tenets of IMF-World Bank adjustment strategies have been those of reduction of the fiscal deficit through