Joseph E. Stiglitz, Bert Koenders, and Jose Antonio Ocampo discussed possible reform of the international monetary and financial system at the Carnegie Council on September 30.  Stiglitz chaired the UN Commission of Experts on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System, and he told the audience that the multi-national commission's findings "provide a deeper analysis of the causes of the crisis and a long-term agenda of what to do about it than, for instance, what has come out of the G-20 communiqués and reports."  

One of the commission's concerns over the response to the global economic crisis, in the United States in particular, is consolidation in the banking sector.  As Stiglitz said at the Carnegie Council:

The problem of too-big-to-fail banks has become much worse since the beginning of the crisis. While we're making some strides in trying to improve things, we've made some things much worse.

It's worse because we have bigger banks, more concentration, but also because we've increased the moral hazard problem. We've introduced in many countries around the world a new concept that never had any role in economics before: banks that are too big to be financially resolved, where you protect the bondholders and shareholders as well as the institution and the depositors.

Here is an excerpt from the panel discussion:

To watch the full session, click here.

And you can read the Report of the Commission of Experts of the President of the United Nations General Assembly on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System here.