Safeguarding prosperity in a global financial system : the future international financial architecture ; report of an independent task force sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations / Morris Goldstein, Carla A. Hills, Peter G. Peterson

"A Council on Foreign Relations-sponsored report."

Introduction -- Why the International Financial Architecture Matters, Including to the United States --The Roots of Financial Crises and Weakness in the Existing Architecture -- Recommendations --Concluding Remarks: Moderate versus Radical Reform Plans -- Dissenting Views -- Members of the Task Force.

This report contains the findings and recommendations of an independent blue-ribbon commission on the future international financial architecture. The commission was sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, and co-chaired by Peter G. Peterson and Carla A. Hills, with the Institute for International Economics' Morris Goldstein serving as project director. The membership is listed below. The report analyzes the main factors that give rise to banking, currency, and debt crises, and it proposes a set of interrelated recommendations for improving crisis prevention and resolution. It also explains why the United States, despite its impressive overall economic performance since the outbreak of the Asian crisis, has a large stake in the future international financial architecture. The commission's recommendations aim at altering the behavior of emerging-market borrowers and their private creditors in ways that would reduce vulnerabilities in the exchange rate systems of emerging economies; inducing private creditors to accept their fair share of the costs of crisis resolution; reforming the IMF's lending policies; and refocusing the mandates of the IMF and the World Bank on leaner agendas. Its recommendations range well beyond the decisions taken to date by the international financial community.