Over the past three decades, the world trading system has functioned well, while the financial system has stumbled. While the trading system cannot provide a template for redesigning the financial system, it can provide useful lessons. The primary goal of the world trading system has been to liberalize commerce. By contrast, the primary goal of the world financial system has been to stabilize markets. The trading system has nonetheless devised useful means for anticipating and coping with shocks. In the pre-crisis period, the trading system has stressed the articulation of binding agreements as to predictable rules. In the mid-crisis period, the trading system's distinction between external and internal causes has political, but not economic, resonance in financial shocks. In the post-crisis period, effective investigation of business conditions abroad and meaningful adjustment to world markets are both useful lessons. Copyright 1999 by Oxford University Press.
