International Financial Governance Under Stress

The Asian and Argentinian financial crises have focused attention on the most appropriate shape and role for international and national financial institutions. This volume offers a wide-ranging overview of the problems and possible policy responses. Although the approach is multi-disciplinary, most of the contributors write from a political economy perspective.

Intensifying global financial liberalization and integration has been accompanied by increased financial volatility over the past two decades. This has been revealed most dramatically by the Asian financial crisis and the more recent crisis in Argentina. These and lesser-known crises in emerging economies have focused attention on determining the most appropriate role for international and national financial institutions to play. This volume offers a wide-ranging overview of the problems and possible policy responses involved in resolving the issues discussed.

Persistent episodes of global financial crises have placed the existing system of international monetary and financial governance under stress. The resulting economic turmoil provides a focal point for rethinking the norms and institutions of global financial architecture and the policy options of public and private authorities at national, regional and transnational levels. This volume moves beyond analysis of the causes and consequences of recent financial crises and concentrates on issues of policy. Written by distinguished scholars, it focuses on the tension between global market structures and national policy imperatives. Accessible to both specialists and general readers, the analysis is coherent across a broad range of theoretical and empirical cases. Offering a series of reasoned policy responses to financial integration and crises, the volume grapples directly with the institutional and often-neglected normative dimensions of international financial architecture. The volume thus constitutes required reading for scholars and policy-makers.

DEMOCRACY UNDER STRESS focuses on the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 and its implications for democracy. Why and how did the crisis come about? Are there any instructive lessons to be drawn from comparisons with the Great Depression of the 1930s? What are the democratic response mechanisms to cope with serious crises? Do they work? Is China a new trend setter? Do values matter? Are global democratic rules a possibility? These are some of the key questions addressed in the volume.

Summary: v.1 provides an analysis of the role of those institutions established at Bretton Woods and their relations with the newly created World Trade Organization. Particular attention is given to the Internation Monetary Fund and the World Bank -- v.2 examines the type of global governance necessary for the changing world economy. Finally -- v.3 discusses the growing integration of capital markets and their role in the new economic architecture.

This paper explains specifics of stress testing at the IMF. After a brief section on the evolution of stress tests at the IMF, the paper presents the key steps of an IMF staff stress test. They are followed by a discussion on how IMF staff uses stress tests results for policy advice. The paper concludes by identifying remaining challenges to make stress tests more useful for the monitoring of financial stability and an overview of IMF staff work program in that direction. Stress tests help assess the resilience of financial systems in IMF member countries and underpin policy advice to preserve or restore financial stability. This assessment and advice are mainly provided through the Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP). IMF staff also provide technical assistance in stress testing to many its member countries. An IMF macroprudential stress test is a methodology to assess financial vulnerabilities that can trigger systemic risk and the need of systemwide mitigating measures. The definition of systemic risk as used by the IMF is relevant to understanding the role of its stress tests as tools for financial surveillance and the IMF’s current work program. IMF stress tests primarily apply to depository intermediaries, and, systemically important banks.

This book represents the first systematic attempt to explore the financial crisis in an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective and is essential reading for both policy-makers and academics interested in national governance.

The October 2019 Global Financial Stability Report (GFSR) identifies the current key vulnerabilities in the global financial system as the rise in corporate debt burdens, increasing holdings of riskier and more illiquid assets by institutional investors, and growing reliance on external borrowing by emerging and frontier market economies. The report proposes that policymakers mitigate these risks through stricter supervisory and macroprudential oversight of firms, strengthened oversight and disclosure for institutional investors, and the implementation of prudent sovereign debt management practices and frameworks for emerging and frontier market economies.