Copyright © The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press.
An enduring need: multilateralism in the twenty-first century
* Johns Hopkins University, and former First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, e-mail: annekrueger{at}jhu.edu
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That the global economy has been hugely successful over the past 50 years is unquestionable. A major underpinning of that success has been the open multilateral system, which has enabled the emergence of a truly international financial system, reciprocal reduction of trade barriers, and the emergence of many previously poor countries into the status of ‘emerging markets’ or even ‘developed’. The open multilateral system, however, is increasingly under-appreciated and taken for granted. Preferential trading arrangements have proliferated, and with them the possibility of discriminatory arrangements for capital flows. The absence of an international regime for capital flows permits this development and poses a threat to the system, as do all of the issues on which countries' governments assert ‘their’ interests, and ignore their interests in the overall health of the system. It is to be hoped that the benefits of multilateralism are more greatly appreciated, and that the current trend toward increasing regionalism and departures from the post-war system is reversed.
Key Words: multilateralism • global economy • trade liberalization • global financial stability
1 Many participants in the Bretton Woods conference were also concerned about the potential they perceived for destabilizing capital flows, but the issue was not strenuously fought by others because of the belief that they would not, in any event, be forthcoming.
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