Página 21 - Coordinación de Servicios de Información

FIFTY YEARS AFTER BRETTON WOODS. The future of the
IMF and the World Bank, (Proceedings of a conference in
Madrid, sept.29-30, 1994).
• . . . the essential purpose of the international monetary system is
to provide a framework that facilitates the exchange of goods, ser–
vices, and capital among countries,
and sustains sound economic growth. A principal objective is the
continuing development of the orderly underlying conditions that
are necessary for financial and economic stability ..
(IMF, Artic/es of Agreement, Artic/e IV, Section 1).
These words in the IMF Articles of Agreement provide a vision for
the IMP's surveillance role: a role that continues to be appropriate
today. Yet the vision of a world of efficent markets, sustained growth,
and financial stability has not been realized. Fifty years after the
Bretton Woods agreement, the institutions exist in a paradoxical
and volatile world. It is one in which the growing interdependence
of national econorrues implies the need for effective surveillance.
Yet the world is also one in which the significance and credibility
of national governments and intergovernmental institutions appear
to be declining before a proliferation of interest groups at home
and multinational firms and financial institutions pursuing their
interests abroad.
The effect of these paradoxes is apparent in three aspects of sur–
veillance.
First: the preconditions for successful surveillance and policy coor–
dination are increasingly difficult to meet because of the role that
domestic interest groups play, particularly in fiscal policy forma–
tion.
Second: the perennial debate about exchange rate arrangements
needs to be recast in the light of developments in international busi–
ness and finance.
Third: capital flows, freed by regulatory changes and technologi–
cal innovation, are now so large and swift that markets, rather than
international financial institutions, have become a majar source of
discipline on domes tic policies. Yet surveillance still has a key role
to play in providing advice on good policy that will sustain economc
growth and promote stability; surveillance also still faces a chal-
English tor Economisls 19