Reforming Governance of International Financial Regulation

Have the G-20 Done Enough? – Policy Brief #2

In the wake of the 2007-2008 financial crisis—the worst crisis in a generation—the effectiveness of regulation of international finance has been called into question. The global institutions which provide the international standards and rules for the world had also been profoundly undemocratic through their exclusion of developing countries. Following the crisis, and the Group of Twenty’s (G-20) reaction to it, significant reforms have taken place to include members from developing countries for the first time in regulatory financial bodies. In the following sections we will examine these reforms and suggest further improvements that would not only improve governance but also serve to make financial regulation more effective for the future.

About the Authors

Kevin Young
Fellow in Government & Global Politics
London School of Economics

Stephany Griffith-Jones
Financial Markets Program Director
Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD)

Stephany Griffith-Jones is an economist specialising in international finance and development, with emphasis on reform of the international and national financial system, especially in relation to financial regulation and global governance. She is Financial Markets Director at the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, Columbia University. Previously she was Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex University. She was Director of International Finance at the Commonwealth Secretariat and worked at UN DESA and ECLAC. She was senior consultant to governments in Eastern Europe, Latin America and Africa and many international agencies, including the World Bank, the IADB, the European Commission, UNDP and UNCTAD. She was a member of the Warwick Commission on financial regulation. She currently is theme leader on finance in the ESRC /DFID growth programme for LICs, especially African ones. She has published over 20 books and many scholarly and journalistic articles. Her books include Time for the Visible Hand, Lessons from the 2008 crisis, edited jointly with José Antonio Ocampo and Joseph Stiglitz.