UofT G8 Information Centre: Conferences and Lecture Series. Rome 2001

A Conference Sponsored by
The G8 Research Group, University of Toronto, Canada and
The Associazione Guido Carli, Italy

As the twenty first century opened, it was easy to assume that the reforms to the international financial system undertaken in the last half of the 1990's were adequate to the core tasks of ensuring stability, sustained growth and broadly shared benefits in the world economy. That comfortable consensus has now been shattered. A sharp growth slowdown in the U.S., a sluggish performance in Europe, and continued stagnation in Japan have called into question the view that a "new economy" era of technology fuelled rapid productivity growth would become a permanent process in North America and spread easily to the other major market economies. The outburst of potentially contagious financial crises in Argentina and Turkey and ongoing struggles in Indonesia have suggested that recent reforms to the international financial system may be insufficient to cope with the dynamics that a rapidly globalizing economy is unleashing. And the advent of new governments in the United States and Japan have called into question the very relevance of the central international financial institutions, highlighted outstanding issues of crisis prevention, private sector participation and IFI roles and responsibilities, and re-opened basic questions about the world's monetary system. They have also offered hope that long neglected fundamental issues can now be addressed.

To explore these new challenges, the basic processes that lie behind them, and the innovative new directions the global community may need, the Associazione Carlo Guido and the G8 Research Group are mounting a one day conference on "Assembling a New International Financial Architecture: The Deeper Challenges," to be held in Rome, Italy on July 17, 2001 in the immediate lead-up to the 2001 Italian-hosted Genoa G7/G8 Summit. Taking place just after the G7 finance ministers have met to prepare their reports to leaders, and immediately before the leaders themselves meet to consider these reports and related issues, this conference offers a timely opportunity to deepen the analysis and widen the array of options the G7 leaders have available. It will also outline an agenda for intensified analytic work and policy analysis in the year-long lead-up to the Canadian hosted Ottawa Summit in 2002.

To conduct this inquiry, the conference will critically assess in turn: the elements and adequacy of recent G7-led efforts at international financial system reform; the current causes of and prospects for growth in the "new" global economy; the current challenges of crisis prevention, private sector participation, and IFI responsibilities; and the fundamental issue of the world's monetary supply and sovereignty in the face of market forces. These issues are examined by leading economists and scholars of political economy from the academic and policy communities in several G7 countries.

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	Please send comments to: g8@utoronto.ca This page was last updated August 15, 2024.

2001 G8 Pre-Summit Academic Symposium

Assembling a New International Financial Architecture: The Deeper Challenges

Assembling a New International Financial Architecture:
The Deeper Challenges