Coordonner les réponses internationales face à la crise financière

« Une action concertée à l’échelle mondiale, fondée sur des politiques similaires et exécutées par les gouvernements nationaux » est essentielle pour gérer la crise financière. C’est ce qu’a écrit M. Klaus F. Zimmermann, professeur d’économie à l’Université de Bonn, sur le site Internet VoxEU.org.

Zimmermann says that recent market reactions suggest that attempts to restore calm and trust will be ineffective in the short term. Therefore, he argues that « the authorities need to adopt a mixed strategy of short-term and long-term measures to handle the crisis ». 

For now, he argues that « unsecured interbank lending has to be re-established by guarantees provided by the central banks, » while national governments need to provide a « harmonised level of insurance for bank deposits ». 

Moreover, authorities need to take « measures to recapitalise the banking system, » central bank interest rates must remain low and banks should be allowed to « value their assets at their purchase price and not their current market value, » he opines. 

Although some of these measures have already been introduced, Zimmerman argues that decisions were taken « without the necessary coordination ». 

The author claims that it is « essential to dampen expectations of an incoming recession, since these have detrimental effects on consumer demand and investment spending ». To restore trust in the financial markets, he argues that « any fiscal stimulus needs to be timely, temporary and targeted at those who are inclined to spend the money provided by the government ». 

As for the long-term, Zimmerman believes that the stock markets will remain unpredictable until the « architecture of a reinvented financial system comes into view ». In this system, he says that « regionally decentralised regulatory authorities are needed to supervise the entire financial sector, including the hedge funds and the rating agencies ». 

Furthermore, regulatory authorities must be able to « supervise all aspects of market participants’ activity, including off-balance-sheet positions and the protection of investors, » says Zimmerman, adding that that there is a « need to abolish shareholder value as an indicator of success for the compensation schemes of managers ». 

Zimmerman concludes that « new financial products should be examined by the regulatory authorities and tested in a local market before they are accepted for general use » if future financial crises are to be avoided.