Intervention versus Regulation: The Role of the IMF in Crisis Prevention and Management.

This paper examines the most effective role for the IMF in an increasingly volatile global capital market. The Bretton Woods system experience and its successor "non-system" is reviewed, and the resultant institutional structure contrasted with the implicit need for public action to resolve the systemic problems of the global capital market. An interventionist approach proposed by the Fund, designed to discipline borrowers, is contrasted with an alternative approach implicit in the rules proposed by BIS, designed to regulate lenders. Finally, the new powers necessary to create an orderly market for international capital are contrasted with the reality of current international institutional arrangements