Safeguarding prosperity in a global financial system: the future international financial architecture: report of an independent task force

Abstract

This report contains the findings and recommendations of an independent blue-ribbon commission on the prevention and management of international financial crises. The commission was sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, and cochaired by Peter Peterson and Carla Hills, with the Institute's Morris Goldstein serving as project director. The report analyzes the main factors that give rise to banking, currency and debt crises, and it proposes a set of interrelated recommendations for improving crisis prevention and resolution. It also explains why the United States, despite its impressive overall economic performance since the outbreak of the Asian crisis, has a large stake in the future international financial architecture. The commission's recommendations aim at altering the behaviour of emerging-market borrowers and their private creditors in ways that would reduce the frequency and severity of crises. It includes specific proposals for rewarding countries that do better on crisis prevention; reducing vulnerabilities in the exchange rate systems of emerging economies; inducing private creditors to accept their fair share of the costs of crisis reslution; reforming the IMF's lending policies; and refocusing the mandates of the IMF and the World Bank on leaner agendas. Its recommendations range well beyond the decisions taken to date by the international financial community.