The global economic and financial crisis: Which way forward?

This chapter provides a review and commentary on the current financial and economic crisis. It considers important analytical and policy issues from a global and North-South perspective. The analytical issues include the reasons for the better than expected performance of the world economy following the early period of acute crisis, the role of global financial imbalances, and whether or not economic theory has been helpful in explaining the causes of the crisis. It is argued that close international cooperation and policy coordination are essential to continued recovery and improvement in the distribution of the fruits of growth. Cooperation and financial regulation are particularly necessary in order to prevent international contagion and cascading sovereign debt defaults.