The IMF’s economically-weighted voting system gives rise to a major asymmetry of political power, both directly and indirectly, and to serious systemic inertia. The increasing financial pressure on the Fund, a credible “walk-away” threat by “emerging market” economies, and the...

In order to assess the proposal of the IMF to create a Reserve Augmentation Line (RAL), this paper first reviews the conditions that led to the loss of IMF control over balance of payments financing, and how private capital flows increased the liquidity requirements for system stability. It then...

Credit rating agencies (CRAs) play a key role in financial markets by helping to reduce the informative asymmetry between lenders and investors, on one side, and issuers on the other side, about the creditworthiness of companies or countries. CRAs´ role has expanded with financial globalization...

This study seeks to explain the origin, process, and prospects of East Asia’s “counter¬weight” strategy in the arena of international finance, and its significant implications for global financial governance. Overall, this study addresses three key questions: (i) What motivated East...

The implications of trade in services liberalization on poverty alleviation, on welfare and on the overall development prospects of developing countries remain at the hearth of the debate on the interlinkages between trade and development. Assessing the actual and potential implications of...

"As demonstrated by this paper, the experience with the investor-state dispute settlement of a number of countries (mostly in the Asia-Pacific region) appears to have influenced the development of new international investment agreements (IIAs) by those countries. Observing how previous IIAs were...