Sluggish global growth, frequent currency crises, and huge trade imbalances all reveal the failure of the Group of Seven industrial nations to provide effective leadership of the world economy. The G-7 has played this role in the past and must do so again to assure global prosperity.
Part of the G-7's decline is due to continuing policy differences among the United States, Germany, and Japan. The bigger problem, however, is a new "consensus for inaction" based on fears of trying to counter the huge flows of international private capital, the existence of large budget deficits, and the resistance of central banks to coordination by anyone.
The study offers a comprehensive analysis of all these changes in the world economy and reaches an optimistic reading of the prospects for effective G-7 leadership. It proposes an action program that includes reforming the exchange rate regime, instituting an early warning system to prevent new monetary crises, augmenting the resources of the IMF to deal with private capital flows, and institutional reform of the G-7 itself.
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