EMERGING ISSUES IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND FINANCE

Challenge, 2008

This paper addresses the unnecessary and damaging separation of global trade and fi nancial governance. The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization are distinct, with the meetings of the Group of Seven industrial countries (G8 including Russia on political matters) providing the only opportunity to forge a more coherent policy involving trade and fi nancial issues. This author discusses how to build a more broadly representative international structure to deal coherently with the concerns of many nations, not just the wealthier ones.

Journal of International Economic Law, 2010

The recent financial crisis has put enormous strains on the global systems governing international finance and trade. These two important international regulatory systems, created after World War II to promote growth and stability in the global economy, were put to the test in ways unprecedented since the 1930s. This article seeks to analyze and compare their performance as systemic regulators in the course of the crisis and concludes that the trading system performed quite well while the financial system virtually collapsed. This article seeks to account for this difference by looking at the nature of the rules and the institutions governing each and how they evolved so differently over the past 70 years. Central to the success of the World Trade Organization (WTO) is a regulatory approach that includes rules designed, and tested in practice, to align incentives with the public good and prevent regulatory capture and a self-enforcing dispute settlement mechanism that ensures accountability and enforceability. The article concludes that these differences hold important lessons for the reform of the rules and institutions governing finance and trade in the global economy, and the role the WTO should play in this reform. I. TRADE AND FINANCE: THE TWIN PILLARS OF SYSTEMIC REGULATION OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMY A. Nature or nurture? The interplay of two global regulatory systems-finance and trade 1deserves scrutiny in our thinking about the crisis of 2007-09 with respect

2012

The global financial crisis has re-confirmed the need to regulate cross-border finance. As this consensus has emerged, some policymakers and academics have expressed concern that many nations may not have the flexibility to adequately deploy such regulations because of trade and investment treaties they are party to. This policy brief argues that such concerns are largely justified, and offers remedies to make the trading system more compatible with the proper regulation of global finance.

International Studies Review, 2004

International Financial Governance under Stress by Geoffrey Underhill and Xiaoke Zhang is too obviously a conference volume. The seventeen chapters, plus introduction and conclusion, are uneven. Nonetheless, the volume does contain worthwhile analyses and interesting stories, accessible to those who are familiar with the major contemporary debates about international finance. The book is organized thematically but not rigorously. The sections deal respectively with (1) concepts and arguments, (2) country case studies of emerging markets during the Asian financial crisis, (3) country case studies of ''private-public interactions'' in national financial regulation, and, finally, (4) norms and global governance. An alternative organization for the volume, focusing on the kinds of questions each contributor asks, might have helped clarify the ways these essays speak to one another. This review considers, instead, the contributions offering (1) prescriptive policy advice, (2) analysis of the political sociology of financial reform, and (3) theoretical perspectives on the ''democratic deficit'' in global financial governance. The policy-oriented economists who contribute to International Financial Governance under Stress want to know what works and what does not. For example, John Williamson examines a series of policy variablesFincluding opaque public and private accounting, moral hazard in the domestic banking system, fiscal or monetary excess, the wrong exchange rate regimeFin Asian countries that faced currency and banking crises in 1997-1998. He finds that the common experience of countries that suffered crises was recent capital account liberalization. Vijay Joshi views the Indian experience through a similar lens, and both authors recommend limited capital controls. Manmohan S. Kumar and Marcus Miller evaluate the technical feasibility of various institutional alternatives proposed to compensate for the absence of a global lender of last resort. Along the way, they provide some clues to the bargaining strategies of actors including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the US government, and private multinational lenders and investors. These user-friendly chapters are helpful and should have been grouped together. Unfortunately, they provide only a partial introduction to the several overlapping financial policy issue arenas touched on in the remaining chapters, which have a more direct political focus. For example, the Williamson and Joshi recommendations presumably apply to emerging markets only. Why did the editors omit a complementary summary of concrete policy options for advanced industrial countries afraid that financial globalization will inspire a regulatory race to the bottom or an end to the Western European social welfare state? These questions seem especially pertinent given that they clearly motivated the project as a whole. A quick

Asian Economic and Financial Review

The objective of the study is to study the global financial crisis of 2008 and its aftermath. The Great Recession, which is still found fluttering, and the consequences of the recession. As a result of the recession, the global economy is in a slowdown mode, impacting global trade in terms of magnitude and structure. The paper calls for proactive regulatory structure including of Central banks and world bodies such as IMF, WB, and WTO need to awaken to their responsibility of straightening out international finance and trade. Recession, it had an enormous impact on the global economy and is proved to be a huge game changer. For example, the central banks, including the Fed could not foresee and prevent the financial collapse; they are going out of their way to overcome the "recessionary" crunch of the financial crisis. The crisis, said to be similar to that of the Great Depression (1929-33), which also was a great game changer, is widely held to be wayward-banks" caused. This is a massive surprise in the 21 st century"s age of high global finance, of which banks, big and small are rightful custodians. Is the advanced world walking backward in banking? The over 100 years old Fed must have had enough experience of the waywardness of banking and the ways and means of calling it to the right path. It is incumbent on central banking to safeguard the financial interests of the global banking community. In central banking, the CBU-Central Bank of UAE appears to set a right example through its seemingly 24/7/365 monitoring of the banking situation and putting the bank customers" interests at the center of its functioning (Ahmed, 2012). In light of the Financial crisis , central bank functioning becomes more crucial, not only for the financial health of a nation but also its overall economic health and performance, including the external sector, which is

2011

The G-24 Discussion Paper Series is a collection of research papers prepared under the UNCTAD Project of Technical Support to the Intergovernmental Group of Twenty-Four on International Monetary Affairs and Development (G-24). The G-24 was established in 1971 with a view to increasing the analytical capacity and the negotiating strength of the developing countries in discussions and negotiations in the international financial institutions. The G-24 is the only formal developing-country grouping within the IMF and the World Bank. Its meetings are open to all developing countries. The G-24 Project, which is administered by UNCTAD's Division on Globalization and Development Strategies, aims at enhancing the understanding of policy makers in developing countries of the complex issues in the international monetary and financial system, and at raising awareness outside developing countries of the need to introduce a development dimension into the discussion of international financial and institutional reform. The research papers are discussed among experts and policy makers at the meetings of the G-24 Technical Group, and provide inputs to the meetings of the G-24 Ministers and Deputies in their preparations for negotiations and discussions in the framework of the IMF's International Monetary and Financial Committee (formerly Interim Committee) and the Joint IMF/IBRD Development Committee, as well as in other forums.

Economic Themes, 2015

Modern economic and financial crisis has caused a significant reduction in trade flows, for the first time since the Second World War, so it is often referred to as the trade crisis. Despite many benefits and disadvantages of liberalization as key features of modern age, the current crisis has led to a reassessment of these positions affecting the introduction of protectionist measures and the strengthening of regional ties and alliances. The question that arises is how the future trade flows will look like and whether regional integration will prevail over multilateral and liberalized trading system. The financial crisis quickly became the economic crisis that hit all sectors. The first visible effects of the crisis were reflected in a sharp fall in trade flows, and conditioned drop in demand, which led to a fall in production and employment. The first reactions of numerous countries were protectionist measures in order to protect national interests. This again aroused debate betwe...

Contemporary international finance raises important questions about whether, and how, it might be overseen by national governments and international institutions. Inasmuch as global financial stability is a global public good, there is a normative case for governance structures to try to achieve this goal—whether they take the form of interstate cooperation or international institutions. This, however, does not mean that national states will necessarily be willing or able to work together to provide this global public good, as the incentives to free-ride are enormous. Nonetheless, the past 25 years do indicate that there has been some movement toward the provision of such global public goods as financial harmonization and a semblance of global lender-of-last-resort facilities. The record is spotty, but the trend appears to be in the direction of more global governance of global finance.