Toward an Asian Monetary Fund: Ideas for Transition

Abstract

Creation of an Asian Monetary Fund might be a way to improve the financial safety net in Asia. This paper presents ideas for reforming the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization (CMIM)—and its sister organization the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO)—to move Asia in that direction. Among the ideas presented are making the CMIM an international treaty-type organization with paid-in capital, improving indigenous surveillance and monitoring capacity and developing a conditionality framework, merging the CMIM and the AMRO, and creating new functions for a regional stability mechanism such as macroeconomic stabilization. Much of the analysis focuses on Europe, which may have lessons to teach on matters such as transparency and accountability, the dangers of an improperly designed monetary union, the role of the IMF in the global financial safety net, the importance of regional leadership, and the necessity of taking into account local conditions in designing new institutions or initiatives.