Grimes & Kring Publish Research on ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office
William Grimes, Professor of International Relations and of Political Science and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, published a research article in Global Governance on the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO) and East Asian emergency liquidity mechanisms.
In the article, titled “Institutionalizing Financial Cooperation in East Asia: AMRO and the Future of the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization,” Grimes and co-author William Kring of the Pardee School’s Global Development Policy (GDP) Center discusses the development of AMRO, its role as a part of the the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization (CMIM), and how it is institutionalizing its relief practices. This research draws from a grant that Grimes and Kring received from the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership, entitled “Leading by Design: Lessons from CMIM-AMRO for the Global Financial Safety Net.”
The article analyzes AMRO’s progress toward autonomy, using indicators of effective delegation drawn from organizational theory and newly available information and data on AMRO. It also provides a preliminary assessment of AMRO’s progress toward becoming an effective international organization, and prospects going forward.
An excerpt from the abstract:
With a total commitment of $240 billion to aid member states facing a currency crisis, CMIM can provide more funds to members than the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Nonetheless, CMIM continues to be functionally subordinate to IMF decisions. This may now be changing following the 2011 creation of the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO) as a regional mechanism to manage surveillance and design of CMIM lending programs. The ability to delegate surveillance and program design to an independent body is a crucial prerequisite to ending CMIM’s subordination to the IMF, and AMRO seeks to ensure such autonomy through its institutional design.
The full publication can be read here.
William W. Grimes is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, where he has taught since 1996. He previously served as chair of the Department of International Relations and as the first director of the BU Center for the Study of Asia. He has also spent time as a post-doctoral researcher and as a visiting assistant professor at Harvard University. Read more about him here.