Allan Meltzer and his cabal of fellow iconoclasts obviously hit
something when they fired their round in the debate about the IMF
and the World Bank.
Carnegie Mellon University's Meltzer, chairman of a congressional
panel called the "International Financial Institution Advisory
Commission", and his conservative colleague in the American
Enterprise Institute, Charles Calomiris of Columbia University,
joined forces with Harvard's Jeffrey Sachs, a card-carrying
Democrat and long-time IMF critic, to forge a common view in favour
of radical restructuring. Three members of the group, all
Democrats, split from the majority and refused to sign the report.
The document arrived at a propitious time.
Public support for the multilaterals, at least in the US, is
waning and their legitimacy has been increasingly challenged. Now,
with a new managing director preparing to take the helm at the IMF,
an opportunity to change course could be at hand although incoming
boss Horst Köhler has hinted against...
