ABSTRACT
Shaping the new international financial architecture requires confronting additional financial issues, such as Contingent Credit Lines, and proposals for revised exchange rate regimes. A very important component of the new international financial architecture has been introduced into the debate. This is the call for the reconsideration of appropriate equity ratios for financial institutions. By the second half of 1999, as the financial markets in those parts of the world calmed, the debate about the new financial architecture subsided as well. All agree that greater transparency is required in the world's financial system. Yet, when one asks for more concrete suggestions on what greater degree and form of transparency is required, a much more difficult situation arises. Transparency necessitates accepting and employing certain statistics to serve as a well-understood referent. Germany has had the International Monetary Fund (IMF) ask it to meet IMF standards.
