This paper provides a historical background to contemporary debates on the international monetary system: their genesis, similarities, and differences of problems it has faced at different times. It looks sequentially at the design of the Bretton Woods system; the tensions it faced since the...

This paper analyzes the impact of international financial cycles on structural change in developing economies. It is argued that the impact of these cycles depend on the specific combination of macroeconomic and industrial policies adopted by the developing economy. The cases of Brazil and...

This paper looks at historical and current frameworks to manage macroeconomic linkages among economies. It considers first the evolving nature of global payments imbalances. It then focuses on the mechanisms of macroeconomic dialogue and cooperation put in place at different times to guarantee...

This working paper has been commissioned by the Poverty Group, Bureau for Development Policy at UNDP, to identify the transmission mechanisms of the financial crisis from developed to developing countries and to provide broad policy recommendations at the national, global and regional level. The...

This paper proposes a reformed architecture of the international monetary system based on three pillars. The first is a representative apex organization, which can be understood as a transformation of the G-20 into a representative international institution. The second is the continuous reform...

This paper analyses the history and effectiveness of the two major mechanisms of resolution of balance of payments crisis. It argues that IMF lending has met its counter-cyclical objectives through history and has been improving in terms of providing adequate lending facilities as well as...

This paper reviews the history and controversies associated with capital account management. It first looks at the transition from the acceptance at the Bretton Woods conference of capital account regulations as a normal policy instrument to the liberalization of the capital account, first in...

This paper explores the complementary use of two instruments to manage capital-account volatility in developing countries: capital-account regulations and counter-cyclical prudential regulation of domestic financial intermediaries. Capitalaccount regulations can provide useful instruments in...

This paper proposes a comprehensive yet evolutionary reform of the global monetary non-system that evolved out of the breakdown of the original Bretton Woods arrangement in the early 1970s. It includes: (i) a global reserve system that mixes the multi-currency arrangement with an active use of...

Latin American has the longest history of regional integration efforts in the developing world. This paper analyzes the experience of regional monetary cooperation in Latin America over the past three decades. This experience has been overall successful but also uneven, both in terms of country...