Is Financial Stability Possible in the Current International System?

Abstract

If the world economy is going to serve global welfare, then the international financial system has to become more stable. The globalization of capital flows that has been a hallmark of the last quarter-century has the potential to promote trade and economic growth, but it has not yet done so in a sustained and beneficial way. A wave of financial crises has undone much of the benefit, with increasingly broad and deep effects. The question that this chapter addresses is whether the system can be strengthened so as to retain the advantage of openness while mitigating the instability that undermines it.

James M. Boughton is Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI). This paper is adapted from Stabilizing International Finance: Can the System Be Saved?”, CIGI Essays in International Finance, Number 2 (September 2014).