Promoting Multilateral Solutions for a Globalized World

IMF Blog, August 30, 2012

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The world is "increasingly globalized and interconnected," which helps spread ideas, information, and technology more quickly.
The globalized economy has created "a complex and interlocking network of capital and trade flows" that have brought major economic gains, "lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty around the world."
The "prolonged global financial crisis" illustrates that interconnectedness carries grave risks as well as benefits.
With instant communication there is "the risk of rapid contagion."
There is "a strong public interest in ensuring that global economic integration is supported by a coherent set of coordinated national macroeconomic policies and a harmonized international regulatory regime that addresses the fragilities in our global financial system."

Kishore Mahbubani (dean, National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy; author of the forthcoming book The Great Convergence: Asia, the West, and the Logic of One World)
- Argues that the "global village" increasingly requires global solutions to big emerging problems such as climate change.
Kemal Derviş (former head of the United Nations Development Programme; vice president at the Brookings Institution)
- Identifies "three fundamental shifts in the global economy" leading to major adjustments in the balance between east and west.
- Argues the world of the future will be "ever more multipolar and interdependent," calling for emerging and developing countries to play a greater role in international institutions.
Christine Lagarde (IMF managing director; Straight Talk)
- Says the Fund is making progress "at mapping global financial risks and the links between the financial sector and the 'real' economy."
- States that arguably the biggest challenge is "persuading national policymakers to take a global perspective."
Masahiro Kawai (dean, Asian Development Bank Institute) and Domenico Lombardi (president, The Oxford Institute for Economic Policy)
- Examine the growing set of regional financial arrangements that help "underpin global financial stability."

Profile of Justin Yifu Lin, "the World Bank’s first chief economist from an emerging economy or developing country," discussing New Structural Economics as a method for rethinking sustainable development.
How Myanmar is reintegrating into the global economy.
Analysis of how China can boost domestic spending.
Comparative insights on "what India and China can learn from each other."
Examination of proposals to broaden taxation of the financial sector in Europe.

Source: Promoting Multilateral Solutions for a Globalized World — IMF blog, August 30, 2012