The Security of International Finance

Abstract

This lecture, presented at Oxford on 19 January 1999, opened the Wolfson College Lectures 1999 series Globalization and Insecurity. The first part of my lecture attempts to explain the origins of inherent instability in international capital flows, and why this requires public institutions to maintain an orderly market. In the second part, it is argued that despite widespread recognition of this problem, the necessary institutions do not exist due to the mismatch between intergovernmental power and the requirements of a global market. The third and last part of the lecture sketches some of the implications of this dilemma for belief in the efficiency of markets, the establishment of international property rights, and ultimately for global citizenship itself.