Project Syndicate

Next year, the world's other economic superpower will assume the presidency of the G-20 and host its annual summit. Though China's leadership will, it is hoped, lack the drama of 2009, President Xi Jinping will undoubtedly make an impression of his own. If he did not miss the opportunity to advance the goal of an Asia-Pacific trade agreement while hosting last year's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, he certainly will not pass up the chance to ensure that the G-20 agenda serves China...

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The Group of Twenty: Origins, Prospects and Challenges for Global Governance

At the height of the global financial and economic crisis of 2008-09, the Group of Twenty was elevated to country leaders' level and acknowledged itself as the "premier forum for ... international economic cooperation." This self-acknowledgment reflected the long-felt need to institutionalize the dialogue between the advanced and emerging economies in a more effective setting. However, the ad hoc nature of the G-20 and the extent to which an informal and self-selected club of nations can provide a stable framework for facilitating global cooperation has been questioned. Against this backdrop, the study traces the G-20's historical evolution, situates the dynamics of its institutional arrangements, and reviews the emerging literature on G-20 reform. Building on this analysis, the study then assesses the expansion of the G-20's scope to global development and appraises the Group's evolution in the broader context of the current global governance framework.

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The Euro-Area Crisis: Weighing Options for Unconventional IMF Interventions

As European leaders continue to work toward a plan to address the eurozone crisis, global investors remain wary of potential defaults by heavily indebted countries like Italy and Greece, and the economic impact on the rest of the world. In the paper "The Euro-Area Crisis: Weighing Options for Unconventional IMF Interventions," Domenico Lombardi and co-author Sarah Puritz Milsom explore unconventional tools to better equip the IMF to help Europe solve its debt crisis.

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Lombardi and Milsom's paper is also anchored on ForeignPolicy.com’s "Deep Dive" section, which combines the above in-depth study with the in-the-moment conversation of Foreign Policy's news team and commentary from leading economic experts, including former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, economist Barry Eichengreen and PIMCO CEO Mohamed El-Erian.

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Recommendations from the High-Level Panel on the Governance of the Financial Stability Board

At the height of the global financial crisis, at the London Summit in April 2009, the G–20 leaders created the Financial Stability Board (FSB)–as a successor to the Financial Stability Forum–with the aim of strengthening financial supervision and regulation through a broadened mandate, a stronger institutional basis and enhanced capacity. With an enlarged membership, the FSB is charged with an expanded mandate to formulate and oversee the implementation of regulatory, supervisory and other financial sector policies. It does so by acting as a convening forum for national authorities responsible for financial stability in significant financial centers, international financial institutions, sector-specific international groupings of regulators and supervisors, and central bank experts.

Despite the growing importance of the FSB in the global financial architecture, there is extremely limited knowledge as to how it operates and how it is governed.

In response, Brookings convened a High-Level Panel to examine the current governance framework of the FSB in order to provide recommendations for strengthening its governance on the basis of international best practice standards. The panel draws from an internationally recognized and diverse group of experts, including former deputy prime ministers, finance ministers and central bank governors, senior academics and experts in global governance, and civil society members창��"all broadly representative of the various regions of the world.

MEMBERS OF THE HIGH-LEVEL PANEL

Amar Bhattacharya, Head of the G–24 Secretariat

Danny Bradlow, Professor of International Law, American University and University of Pretoria

Eric Helleiner, Professor, University of Waterloo; Chair in Global Governance, Centre for International Governance Innovation

Louis A. Kasekende, Deputy Governor, Bank of Uganda

Harold James, Professor, Princeton University

Jo Marie Griesgraber, Executive Director, New Rules for Global Finance

Domenico Lombardi, President, the Oxford Institute of Economic Policy; Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution; Rapporteur for the High-Level Panel

Jacques Mistral, Head of Economic Studies, L’Institut français des relations internationales (IFRI); Member of the Conseil d’Analyse Economique to the French Prime Minister

Bessma Momani, Associate Professor, University of Waterloo; Senior Fellow, Centre for International Governance Innovation

Jose Antonio Ocampo, Professor, Columbia University; Former Finance Minister of Colombia; Former Under Secretary General of the United Nations

Djoomart Otorbaev, Senior Advisor, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development; Former Deputy Prime Minister of the Kyrgyz Republic

Pedro Solbes, Former European Union Commissioner of Economic and Monetary Affairs; Former Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister of Spain

Ezra Suruma, Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Brookings Institution; Former Finance Minister and Central Bank Governor of Uganda

Chalongphob Sussangkarn, Distinguished Fellow, Thailand Development Research Institute; Former Finance Minister of Thailand

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The Euro-Area Crisis: Weighing Policy Options and the Scope for U.S. Leverage

Testimony to the Subcommittee on Security and International Trade and Finance and the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs

Chairman Warner, Ranking Member Johanns, honorable members of the Subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to share my views with you on the euro-area crisis and its implications for the United States.

I have organized my remarks as follows: in the first section I elaborate on the origin of the crisis and provide a basic chronology of the main events until the downgrade by Standard & Poor’s of Italy’s sovereign bonds on Monday. In the following section, I focus on the policy response, highlighting the many gaps that still persist and proposing a multi-pronged strategy consisting of immediate as well as short- and medium-term measures. Finally, in the last section, I focus on the implications for the U.S. economy and elaborate on the diplomatic and institutional levers that the U.S. can mobilize to affect current developments in Europe.

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Asia and Policymaking for the Global Economy

In this collaboration between the Brookings Institution and the Asian Development Bank Institute, eminent international economists examine the increased influence
of Asian nations in the governance
of global economic affairs,
from the changing role of the G-20 to the reform of multilateral
organizations such as the international Monetary Fund.

Established in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis at the ministerial level, the G-20 has served as a high-level platform for discussing economic analyses and policy responses since 1999. During the current global financial crisis, however, the G-20’s role moved toward that of a global crisis management committee at the leadership level. The challenge now for the G-20 is to succeed in fostering ongoing and increasing cooperation among its members while being supportive of, rather than trying to replace, more universal institutions.

After analyzing the dynamics of growth in Asia comparatively and historically, the volume appraises the scope for policy coordination among key economies. The contributors analyze financial stability in emerging Asia and then assess the implications of Asia’s increasing role within the newly emerging system of global economic governance, focusing especially on reform of the international monetary structure.

Contributors: Dony Alex (ICRIER, New Delhi), Kemal Dervis¸ (Brookings), Hasan Ersel (Sabanci University), Karim Foda (Brookings), Yiping Huang (Peking University), Masahiro Kawai (ADBI), Rajiv Kumar (FICCI, New Delhi), Domenico Lombardi (Oxford University and Brookings), José Antonio Ocampo (Columbia University), Jim O’Neill (Goldman Sachs)

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Financial Regionalism: A Review of the Issues

In an unprecedented effort to counteract the spread of the financial crisis in Europe, its finance ministers have announced the establishment of the European Stabilization Mechanism, which can mobilize up to $1 trillion. Earlier, in 2009 in Asia, the finance ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Plus Three announced the multilateralization of the Chiang Mai Initiative and, in April 2010, the establishment of a surveillance unit, in effect laying the foundation for an Asian Monetary Fund.

Despite these important developments, however, thus far relatively little attention has been paid to the purpose, the potential, and the actual accomplishments of regional and/or subregional financial arrangements. Additionally, it is unclear whether these arrangements should complement, or serve as alternatives to, a global monetary institution like the International Monetary Fund.

The discussion of financial regionalism has often been confined to Asia, because this region’s massive accumulation of reserve assets may lead to the establishment of a regional institution on the scale of the IMF that could both compete with the Fund and offer an alternative to its regulatory role. Perhaps in acknowledgment of this, and as a sign of a shifting attitude, an IMF communiqué released on October 9, 2010, pointed out that it is important for the Fund “to cooperate . . . with regional financial arrangements.”

Against this backdrop, the present paper aims to provide basic elements to inform current discussions. However, though the paper focuses on the latest developments in Europe and Asia, and their implications for an “optimal” regional architecture, an exhaustive treatment of financial regionalism is beyond its scope.

The paper is organized as follows. The second section reviews the developments in the European crisis, the related policy response, and its implications for the European financial architecture; the third and fourth sections focus on the increasing use of bilateral swap lines in the recent financial crisis, the Chiang Mai Initiative’s multilateralization, and the potential for further economic integration in Asia; the fifth section looks into the issues of consistency between regional and global financial architectures; and finally, the sixth section points to the relevance of the increasing wave of financial regionalism for the United States, despite the fact that it is not playing an active part in the trend.

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Finance, Development, and the IMF

This book provides an assessment of the role of the International Monetary Fund in poor countries. In recent years, a large portion of the work of the IMF has focused on the economies of low-income countries by aiming to create conditions conducive to poverty reduction and stable economic growth. More than two fifths of the IMF's 185 members are low-income countries and many others have substantial pockets of poverty in their populations. Since economic development and the reduction of poverty are the most important economic challenges that these countries face, how can the IMF best help them? How can the imperative of macroeconomic and financial stability be reconciled with the requirements for sustained economic growth? This volume brings together the research of leading economists, political scientists, and historians to suggest ways for the IMF to address these issues effectively

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