Monday, February 21, 2011

G20 summit – no real progress

The G20 meeting provided some guidelines for tracking global imbalances but there was little coordination to solve the problem. See the complete text. The following provides the broad guidelines that were discussed. It includes everything possible for discussion on international finance.

While not targets, these indicative guidelines will be used to assess the following indicators: (i) public debt and fiscal deficits; and private savings rate and private debt (ii) and the external imbalance composed of the trade balance and net investment income flows and transfers, taking due consideration of exchange rate, fiscal, monetary and other policies.

As highlighted by a Goldman Sachs economist, “The number of potential indicators and measures references in these sentences reads like a concentrated summary of a textbook on international economics.”

Enough said.

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