Architecture of Supra-Governmental International Financial Regulation

Supra-governmental regulatory institutions (SNRs) resemble bridges that span gaps in the jurisdiction of individual–country regulators. The most important bridges address cross-country problems of crisis management and development finance not just as forums but as portfolio lenders as well. At portfolio SNRs, traditional cash-flow accounting supports incentives to overlend to countries undergoing crisis and to direct insufficient development funds to the world's neediest countries. Better performance requires not so much a structural streamlining of SNR missions as a realignment of the bureaucratic incentive systems under which SNR managers function. To accomplish this, reformers must focus on identifying economically meaningful indexes of SNR achievement and experimenting with programs that link deferred managerial compensation at SNRs to sustained long-period movements in the selected indexes.