CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — As the global financial crisis radiates out from the developed economies into emerging markets, it is ravaging not only governance-challenged economies such as Venezuela, Russia and Argentina. The crisis is also striking countries like Brazil, Korea and South Africa, which appeared to have made substantial and lasting progress toward macroeconomic stability.
For this reason, the future shape of the International Monetary Fund is rapidly moving to the top of the agenda for world leaders as they prepare to meet in Washington in mid-November to discuss the future of the global financial system.
Just a short time ago, the IMF seemed relegated to a sustained period of irrelevance as it failed to modernize either its euro-centric political representation or its arcane government-to-government lending facilities. Suddenly, the fund has moved to center stage as the only agency seemingly capable of stemming the vicious downward spiral that is seizing emerging-market stocks and bonds.