G20 countries have made very little progress in financial reform

Today, is the one-year anniversary of the first summit of the G20 Leaders convened last year in November to tackle the global financial crisis. So, one year later; how may the efforts of the G20 countries be assessed?

The G20 Leaders themselves seemed very content when they met in September. The opening remarks of their joint statement quite simply declared a remarkable victory:

“[We have] confronted the greatest challenge to the world economy in our generation. Global output was contracting at pace not seen since the 1930s. Trade was plummeting. Jobs were disappearing rapidly. Our people worried that the world was on the edge of a depression. At that time, our countries agreed to do everything necessary to ensure recovery, to repair our financial systems and to maintain the global flow of capital. It worked”

Particularly with respect to the issue of ‘repairing our financial systems’ this assessment is way off. The truth is that very little progress has been made.

A new DIIS policy brief, by Robert Boyer and Jakob Vestergaard, outlines a comprehensive approach to financial regulation which may ensure that financial crises in the future will be significantly fewer and milder than they have been in the past two decades.

Further, we are delighted to announce the publication of a working paper by Robert Boyer on closely related issues. Boyer's working paper is published in our sub-series on governance in the global economy.