The New Architecture of the International Monetary System

by Paolo Savona (Editor)

Two years ago, the Guido Carli Association, in collaboration with the Aspen Institute Italia, charged a group of distinguished economists to examine the problems created by the unsatisfactory functioning of the International Monetary System. The two resulting conferences were sponsored by the Fondazione della Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze (CESIFIN) and the Permanent Advisory Committee on the Euro and the Dollar (PACE&D). Their research had a two-fold aim. The first was an examination of the basic function of the International Monetary System with a special focus on the role the Euro would and should have. The second was the preparation of a list of recommendations on how to resolve the problems, financial problems in particular, affecting the entire world community.
Last year, the group focused on efforts taking place in diverse financial institutions and universities to construct what has been called the `New International Financial Architecture'. This group considered the legal problems arising from European and international integration and, more generally, from the new architecture of the International Monetary System.
This book, The New Architecture of the International Monetary System , is the final result of their efforts. It will be an invaluable resource for academics, professionals, and students alike.

262 pages, Paperback

First published September 30, 2000

About the author

Paolo Savona is an Italian economist and university professor.
After graduating from university in 1961, his career started by winning the competition to enter the Servizio Studi of Banca d'Italia (Bank of Italy). He worked together with the Guido Carli (governor 1960-1975) and Paolo Baffi (governor 1975-1979). With Antonio Fazio, he directed the working group that created the first econometric model of the Italian economy, M1BI. He also attended courses at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge (USA), where he met Franco Modigliani. Together with Michele Fratianni, he studied the International money creation. He specialised at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve in Washington. In 1976, Guido Carli became the President of Confindustria and asked Savona to follow him as General Director, a post that he kept until 1980.
In the following years, he became President of Credito Industriale Sardo (1980–1989), Secretary-General for Economic Planning at the Ministry of Budget (1980-1982), Chief Executive Officer and then Managing Director of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (1989–1990), President of Fondo Interbancario di Tutela dei Depositi (1990–1999), of Impregilo, Gemina, Aeroporti di Roma and Consorzio Venezia Nuova (2000–2010). After having been vice president of Capitalia, at the moment of the merging with UniCredit, he was named president of Banca di Roma. Between 2000 and 2010, he was also a Board Member of RCS MediaGroup and Telecom Italia.
Savona served as Minister of Industry, Commerce and Craftmanship for the government of Carlo Azeglio Ciampi (April 1993-April 1994), he was Head of the Department for EU Policies of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers during the Berlusconi III Cabinet (2005-2006), and Coordinator of the Technical Committee for the Lisbon Strategy, which prepared the draft of the Italian plan for Growth and Occupation, presented to the European Commission on 15 October 2005.
He also had several public offices in Italy and abroad, among which: member of the OECD Committee for the standardisation of financial statistics, and of the BIS Standing Committee on Eurodollars; President of the Technical-Scientific Council for Economic Planning, and of the Commission on Nuclear Energy in Italy.
In September 2010, he was appointed President of Fondo Interbancario di Tutela dei Depositi for the second time and served as the Chairman of the fintech startup Euklid Ltd until 2018.
Savona was the academic dean of the Faculty of Political Science and International Relations, and director of the PhD in Geopolitics and Economic Geopolitics of the e-University Guglielmo Marconi, of Rome. He served also as Professor emeritus of Economic Politics at the LUISS "Guido Carli" University.
He founded and directed with Michele Fratianni the Open Economies Review, and he is at present the Scientific Editor of the following journals: Economia Italiana, Journal of European Economic History and Review of Economic Conditions in Italy.
He taught in the universities of Perugia and Rome Tor Vergata, and at Public Administration Superior School.
His favourite research topics are the international monetary system, the effects of the growth of the derivatives market on the efficacy of the economic policy, the gaps in productivity between Northern/Central Italy and Southern Italy. He is the author and co-author of several papers and books on the problems of the real, monetary and financial economy, and on methodological issues. Among his research, great relevance is attributed to the first econometric model of Italian economy M1BI, the first analyses on the international monetary base and Eurodollar, and on the macroeconomic effects of derivative contracts, which have all anticipated in a systematic way the happening of the dramatic events experienced by the Italian and international economy in the last forty years.