UTLink: Kirton, John. The G-7, the Halifax Summit, and International Financial System Reform. Note #33

Note:

33. The Mexican peso and Barings collapse helped concentrate attention on such questions as: 1. What is the capacity of the system to deal with shocks? How does the Bank for International Settlements operate? Who should best perform the function of internationally supervising banks and other private sector financial institutions? What role should the OECD play?; 2. Are more IMF facilities actually needed and is more money in them required? 3. What other currencies beyond Mexico's can cause systemic destabilization? What can be done, in ways that stabilize the market, on surveillance, facilities, access to facilities, IMF-IBRD overlap and the desirability of a reduced IMF role in development issues? Pushed to the background, at least temporarily, were such questions about the performance of the World Bank, especially in places such as Africa, the need for the World Bank to focus more on the private sector, conditionality, such as low and reduced military expenditure, and the WTO-World Bank-IMF relationship on the new trade issues with the establishment of the WTO and completion of the Uruguay Round.