Measuring financial risk is difficult. But what lessons, if any, have we learnt from the current crisis? This column argues against a move to leverage ratios and instead proposes continuing to measure financial risk (despite the difficulties), but with higher capital charges for banks. Focusing on the basics can only bolster central banks’ ability to fulfil their duties – looking for imbalances, and promptly tackling them with informed decisions.

The NYU Stern group – authors of the influential book Restoring Financial Stability: How to Repair a Failed System – have completed a new ebook that assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the US financial reform legislation. This column introduces the new ebook.

The NYU Stern group – authors of the influential book Restoring Financial Stability: How to Repair a Failed System – have completed a new ebook that assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the US financial reform legislation. This column introduces the new ebook.

Is the global economy turning around? Analysing the situation across the globe, this column concludes that the only reasonably convincing evidence of ‘green shoots’ comes from China – but even that recovery is unlikely to be sustainable due to China's dependency on exports. A global flu pandemic, if it were to occur, would act as a negative supply and demand shock.

China’s “dollar trap” has many analysts worried about its future resolution. This column discusses a similar situation in the 1920s when France held more than half the world’s foreign reserves. France’s “sterling trap” ended disastrously. Sterling suffered a major currency crisis, French authorities lost a lot of money, and subsequent policy reactions deepened the Great Depression.

The IMF appointed a committee, chaired by Trevor Manuel, to look into IMF decision making. This column reviews the report, arguing that it misses critical question on Executive Board reform. Without an independent board, the Fund’s skewed voting power tends to produce uneven treatment of members. Decision-making power must ultimately rest with shareholders but they should be advised by an independent board that acts as the voice of the institution and its membership as a whole.

The approaching release of stress-test results is accompanied by widespread fears that the tests are not rigorous enough. This column argues that a modification to the Capital Assistance Programme would neutralise these concerns. Banks should hold the capital implied by the central scenario, and buy government insurance to cover more extreme outcomes, thus taking the aggregate risk off the leveraged institutions and breaking the link between bad economic news and the financial sector’s health.

This column updates the original Vox columns by Barry Eichengreen and Kevin O’Rourke comparing today’s global crisis to the Great Depression. The three previous columns have shattered all Vox readership records with over 450,000 views. This latest edition covers up to February 2010 showing that, while there is cause for optimism, there is no room for complacency.

The G20 communiqué revealed a clear attitude towards chain-reaction crises. Here one of the world’s most experienced and insightful crisis-watchers argues the G20 communiqué reflects a major improvement in the way leaders view financial crises – moving away from the view that blames the victims and towards a view that recognizes systemic crises and chain-reaction accidents involving many innocent bystanders.

G20 leaders made a number of commitments on trade in their London Communiqué. This column argues that the anti-protection pledge is more credible than the one agreed in the Washington Declaration. The commitment on the Doha Round, by contrast, was pitiful.