Book Talk with Kevin Gallagher

Conference, Meetings and Workshops
Room 1512, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States
Debt and Global Finance

In Ruling Capital: Emerging Markets and the Regulation of Cross-border Finance, Boston University professor Kevin P. Gallagher shows how emerging market and developing countries were able to re-regulate cross-border financial flows into their countries in the wake of the financial crisis—despite the seemingly insurmountable political and economic odds.

Not only did countries make room to regulate at home, but emerging powers created more policy space to regulate under the International Monetary Fund and at the G-20.

However, deep challenges remain. Many nations lack the ingredients to exert the countervailing power necessary to combat the vested interests organized against regulating capital for financial stability at the domestic and global level. What is more, many nations face a new challenge—the creeping reach of United States trade and investment treaties that increasingly govern financial systems as well. Nonetheless, Gallagher shows how major strides were made in recent years, and how they can be built upon.

Dr. Kevin P. Gallagher is an associate professor of global development policy at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, where he co-directs the Global Economic Governance Initiative and the Global Development Policy Program. Follow him on twitter @KevinPGallagher