Helmut Wagner, University of Hagen and Center for East Asia Macroeconomic Studies: This is a well-written paper with a clear message: Asia is special. Asia has gained in economic importance. Asia is not adequately reflected in the actions and quota regulations of international financial organizations. Therefore, Asia needs better financial arrangements of its own to protect itself from possible future financial crises. This in turn means that it should decouple itself from the West / IMF (at least in the medium to long term). To start with, the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization (CMIM) should be fundamentally reformed and lead to an Asian Monetary Fund (AMF), possibly in the longer term also creating a separate common Asian currency. The experiences in Europe could serve as illustrative material in this context.
In Section 2, the authors describe the reasons they see for a fundamental reform of the financial arrangements in Asia and...