Grimes Speaks at Joint RFA Research Seminar
William Grimes, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, was a featured speaker at the May 17-18, 2018 Joint RFA Research Seminar workshop held in Cartagena, Colombia for the leaders and staff of the world’s leading regional financing arrangements (RFAs): the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the Latin American Reserve Fund (FLAR), and the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO), which cumulatively are able to mobilize over $1 trillion to prevent and manage currency crises.
Together with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and bilateral arrangements, RFAs have in recent years become essential elements of the global financial safety net. For the global safety net to work effectively, RFAs must cooperate effectively with the IMF and develop their own capabilities. In the workshop, a small group of leading scholars from Europe, Asia, and the Americas presented cutting-edge scholarship and led discussions on the global financial safety net for RFA leaders and staff. Among the participants were three former finance ministers of Colombia and Indonesia, the managing director of the FLAR, and the chief economists of the ESM and AMRO.
Grimes’ presentation, entitled “CMIM: Five Questions,” drew on his ongoing research on East Asian regional financial cooperation, including his joint work with William Kring, Associate Director of the Pardee School’s Global Development Policy Center. In several projects, including ones funded by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership, they have pioneered the comparative analysis of RFAs and developed a framework for understanding their relationship with the IMF. Bridging the gaps between scholarship and practice, this research seeks to advance understanding of the continuing development of the global financial safety net.
Grimes, who has taught at Boston University since 1996, is a leading scholar of East Asian financial regionalism. His 2008 book Currency and Contest in East Asia: The Great Power Politics of Financial Regionalism won the 2010 Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Prize and received Honorable Mention for the 2009 Asia Society Bernard Schwartz Book Award. More recently, in conjunction with the Pardee School’s Global Economic Governance Initiative, he led a research project for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) to develop a guide to best practices for regional liquidity arrangements.