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June 12, 2009
Op-Ed
Financial Times
Jagdish N. Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya argue that legal protectionism used indiscriminately could undermine the liberal trading system. When exhortation does not work, the threat of retaliation is needed to deter such protectionism.
June 9, 2009
Op-Ed
Amity Shlaes argues, "Europe's stunning fiscal outlays permitted it to pursue tighter monetary policy, while the U.S. used monetary policy as a substitute for European-scale fiscal spending."
See more in Europe/Russia, Germany, International Finance
June 8, 2009
Op-Ed
Wall Street Journal
Edward Alden argues, "the U.S. can't afford to keep turning away the best and the brightest."
See more in United States, Economics, Labor, Trade
May 26, 2009
Op-Ed
Washington Post
Sebastian Mallaby argues that China’s ideas on international finance are mostly muddled.
See more in China, Financial Crises, International Finance
May 17, 2009
Op-Ed
Washington Post
Sebastian Mallaby warns that the international tensions of the 1930s were not just about trade; they were also about exchange rates. And while the world today has a rules-based trading system that staves off protectionism, there is no similar architecture governing exchange rates.
See more in Economics, Financial Crises, International Finance
May 15, 2009
Op-Ed
Forbes Online
Benn Steil argues that Keynes's General Theory demonstrably misapprehends the nature of money and the monetary system, and that shorn of its theoretical foundation, "fiscal stimulus" cannot be considered a harmless remedy.
See more in Economics, Financial Crises, U.S. Strategy and Politics
May 8, 2009
Op-Ed
Washington Post
Sebastian Mallaby argues that forward-looking stress tests should be made permanent to prevent future financial blowups.
See more in United States, Economics, Financial Crises
May 8, 2009
Op-Ed
Forbes Online
Amity Shlaes discusses Wendell Willkie's criticisms of New Deal policies.
See more in United States, Economics, Financial Crises
May 2009
Council Special Report No. 47
Council Special Report
The Canadian oil sands present an important challenge to policymakers: they promise energy security benefits but present climate change problems. Michael A. Levi assesses the energy security and climate change effects of the oil sands and makes recommendations for U.S. policymakers within the context of broader bilateral relations with Canada.
See more in Canada, Climate Change, Energy Security
May 7, 2009
Op-Ed
Wall Street Journal
Matthew J. Slaughter argues that "President Obama's recent soundbites suggest an uncompetitive auto industry."
See more in United States, Financial Crises, Geoeconomics, Trade
May 2009
Other Report
Financial regulations in almost all countries are designed to ensure the soundness of individual institutions, principally commercial banks, against the risk of loss on their assets. This focus on individual firms ignores critical interactions between institutions and can also cause regulators to overlook important changes in the overall financial system. The solution: One regulatory organization in each country should be responsible for overseeing the health and stability of the overall financial system. This Working Paper, the fourth in the Squam Lake Working Group series distributed by the Center for Geoeconomic Studies, argues that the central bank should be charged with this important new responsibility.
See more in Financial Crises, Geoeconomics
April 22, 2009
Op-Ed
Nikkei Financial Daily
Roger M. Kubarych argues that Washington is overly optimistic regarding economic recovery.
See more in United States, Financial Crises
April 2009
Other Report
The scale of financing needed to support the U.S. fiscal deficit—together with the Federal Reserve’s policy of keeping U.S. interest rates low to ward off deflation—has revived concerns about a sudden and sharp depreciation of the U.S. dollar. This Center for Preventive Action Contingency Planning Memorandum by Brad W. Setser examines potential triggers and indicators of such a crisis and posits concrete policy options to limit U.S. vulnerability to the possibility of a plummeting dollar.
See more in United States, Geoeconomics
April 21, 2009
Op-Ed
Bloomberg.com
Amity Shlaes argues that the new Financial Trust Index offers cause for optimism.
See more in United States, Economics, U.S. Strategy and Politics
April 21, 2009
Op-Ed
Foreign Policy
Brad W. Setser argues that the underlying issues responsible for the financial crisis have yet to be addressed.
See more in Financial Crises, International Finance
April 7, 2009
Op-Ed
Bloomberg.com
Amity Shlaes argues that Washington's rejection of Las Vegas is misguided.
See more in Economics, Financial Crises, U.S. Strategy and Politics
April 3, 2009
Interview
CFR's Sebastian Mallaby says the G-20 summit could mark the beginnings of a profound shift in global financial regulation. But he says challenges lurk in the way the IMF is funded and how it monitors economic governance.
See more in Economics, Financial Crises, International Organizations
April 2009
Other Report
This Working Paper, the third in the Squam Lake Working Group series distributed by the Center for Geoeconomic Studies, recommends support for a new regulatory hybrid security that will expedite the recapitalization of distressed financial companies. The new instrument resembles long-term debt in normal times, but converts to equity when the financial system and the issuing bank are both under financial stress. The regulatory hybrid security the authors envision would be transparent, less costly to taxpayers, and more effective than the ad hoc measures taken in the current crisis.
See more in Economics, Financial Crises
April 2009
Other Report
This Working Paper, the second in a series from the Squam Lake Working Group distributed by the Center for Geoeconomic Studies, argues that regulators consider systemic effects when setting bank capital requirements. Everything else the same, capital requirements should be proportionately higher for larger banks, banks that hold more illiquid assets, and banks that finance more of their operations with short-term debt. But capital requirements are not free. When designing capital requirements that address systemic concerns, regulators must weigh the costs such requirements impose on banks during good times against the benefit of having more capital in the financial system when a crisis strikes.
See more in Economics, Financial Crises
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In Money, Markets, and Sovereignty, the authors present a fascinating intellectual history of monetary nationalism from the ancient world to the present and explore why, in its modern incarnation, it represents the single greatest threat to globalization.
In The Closing of the American Border, Edward Alden goes behind the scenes to tell the story of the Bush administration’s struggle to balance security and openness in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
In Termites in the Trading System, Jagdish Bhagwati reveals how the rapid spread of preferential trade agreements endangers the world trading system.
In Regional Monetary Integration, Peter B. Kenen poses an important question: Should various country groups follow the lead of the European Monetary Union and form similar full-fledged monetary unions?
In contrast to conventional wisdom, the growth in government spending and heightened regulation during the Great Depression may have done much to slow economic recovery.
In this report, Benn Steil shows that the financial crisis is the inevitable bust of a classic credit boom, and explains how monetary, taxation, and home ownership promotion policy combined with other feaures of the financial system to fuel an unsustainable buildup in debt. He recommends significant reforms to reverse the debt financing bias and make the system more resilient to falls in asset prices.
In order for policymakers to tackle today’s global economic crisis, this report argues, they must go beyond bailouts and stimulus packages and focus on one of the crisis's root causes: imbalances between savings and investment in major countries.
Copyright 2009 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.