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tank; and the Institute for International Economics, Washington, DC. These institutions, usually composed of banking and other financial organizations, engage in lobbying legislators, regulators and policy-makers, and play important advocacy roles in the interests of the banking community. They also organize periodic conferences, and they provide members of the financial services industry with information on markets and on financial technologies. These research institutions, well funded by private sources, organize forums and establish study groups and committees to present the banking industry with information on international economic and financial issues that provide the financial industry with a ‘sounder basis’ for policy-making advocacy and their own financial decisions. Most of these institutions are based in Washington, DC, and New York. Many have branches in other major financial centers. A case in point is the Institute of International Finance (IIF), estab lished in 1983, in the midst of the Latin American debt crisis. This institute had the sole purpose of gathering and improving information on the economic circumstances of borrowing countries that would enable bankers to make sound investments based on proper country risk assessment. Based in Washington, the IIF includes prominent members from the financial community, the biggest banks, securities firms and insurance companies that invest heavily in foreign markets, and is chaired by senior members of major Wall Street banking institutions. The IIF organizes meetings and conferences where bankers negotiate among themselves, and with governments and international agencies, about solutions to investment problems. The IIF represents banks with foreign loans to the US government and to the global governance institutions. Bankers tend to represent their interests as a group. Senior members of the bigger banks take the lead and do the intermediary work for what can sometimes amount to amalgamations of hundreds of banks. The solution to the debt crisis of the 1980s was seen by bankers, among others, as residing in the re-establishment of the creditworthiness of debtor countries. The crisis itself was seen as a liquidity problem, not a solvency problem, meaning a short-term shortage of money to pay off debts, rather than a lack of capability to service this debt in the long run. Hence, the solution to the debt crisis rested on re-establishing creditworthiness – that is, improving the ‘investment climate’ in debtor countries, by means of adjustment and restructuring programs implemented under the auspices of the