In a luncheon speech at the AEA meeting on January 3, 1999, Stanley Fischer argued the case, in a reformed international financial system for ?an agency that will act as lender of last resort for countries facing a crisis.? He asserts that there is a need for such an agency and ?that the IMF is...

Having lost its Bretton Woods role as a regulator of exchange rates and source of short-term balance-of-payments assistance, the IMF has since been an organization in search of a reason for it to exist. Had it been content to serve its members by keeping records of their monetary and economic...