C Fred Bergsten
C. Fred Bergsten has been Director
of the Institute for International
Economics since its creation in 1981.
He is Chairman of the “Shadow G-8,”
that advises the G-8 countries on their
annual Summit meetings, and was
also Chairman of the Competitiveness
Policy Council, which was created by
Congress, throughout its existence
from 1991 to 1995 and Chairman of
the APEC Eminent Persons Group
throughout its existence from 1993 to
1995. He was Assistant Secretary for
International Affairs of the US
Treasury (1977–81), Assistant for
International Economic Affairs to the
National Security Council (1969–71),
and a Senior Fellow at the Brookings
Institution (1972–76), the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace
(1981), and the Council on Foreign
Relations (1967–68). He is the author,
coauthor, or editor of 31 books on a
wide range of international economic
issues, including Dollar Overvaluation
and The World Economy (2003); No
More Bashing: Building a New
Japan–United States Economic
Relationship (2001); Global Economic
Leadership and the Group of Seven
(1996); The Dilemmas of the Dollar
(second edition, 1996); and America in
the World Economy: A Strategy for the
1990s (1988).
Papers Published in World Economics:
The G-20 and the World Economy
‘Globalisation’ is under attack throughout the world. However, no country has
ever developed successfully without participating actively in the global economy.
Countries and even whole regions that have failed to globalise, or which have
‘de-globalised’, have lagged. What is needed is more openness and better
handling of the major issues of macroeconomic stability and growth. C. Fred
Bergsten argues that the G-7, whose increasingly unrepresentative membership is
eroding the political legitimacy that is essential to win international support and
thus acceptance for many of its proposals, is increasingly unable to manage the
world economy effectively. Instead, it is the wider and more representative G-20
that can best make a major contribution to global macroeconomic stability and
growth, and it should gradually but steadily succeed the G-7 as the informal
steering committee for the world economy.
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