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The OECD at 50
OECD Ministerial Council, OECD Headquarters, 18-19 May 1988. Anita Gradin, Minister for Foreign Trade (left) and Kjell-Olof Feldt, Finance Minister, Sweden; with Jean-Claude Paye, OECD Secretary-General
assessing a specific country facing problems, with the current account playing a lesser role. One effect of this shift in policy focus was a closer attention to budgeting as the core of the public management agenda. The OECD began to be recognised during these years as a key international centre for budget research and innovation, backed by its Working Party of Senior Budget Officials, established in 1980 and composed of budget directors and other senior officials from OECD member countries. This group meets annually to address key budgeting concerns and relevant policy options, and today has counterparts in all regions of the globe. ❱❱
WP3: High-level policy making in a stimulating forum by Sir Andrew Crockett
W
P3, or the OECD Economic Policy
second-order. They certainly didn’t seem so at
were undertaken in the much more limited
Committee’s Working Party No 3
the time. Indeed, they resonate with many
group of the G5 finance deputies. Subsequent
issues that remain with us today.
history shows that, sadly, no lasting
on Policies for the Promotion of Better International Payments Equilibrium, was the
In the mid 1980s, a key focus of WP3
consensus was reached on a framework for
first forum, back in the early 1960s, to concern
discussions was the US payments deficit and
itself explicitly with international economic
how it could be corrected. Stephen Marris,
policy coordination – or ‘co-operation” in the
as Special Advisor to the Secretary-General
retrenchment following the ‘great inflation’ of
favoured official terminology. Its focus lay in
of the OECD, had worried about this for quite
the 1970s. A frequent topic of WP3 discussions
concerns about the working of the international
some time. He eventually left Paris for the
in this period was how the monetary policies
adjustment process.
Institute for International Economics, where he
being followed by the major countries to
sensitised a wider audience to the problem in
combat inflation might affect exchange rates
1980s, when I was responsible for the
his Deficits and the Dollar, concerned about a
and the international adjustment process.
World Economic Outlook project at the IMF.
hard landing for the US and world economies.
Similar debates are taking place today, with the
I continued to attend after moving to the Bank
The deficits don’t seem all that large by
primary policy concern being whether and how
of England, and had the honour to be elected
comparison with those of today, but they were
easy monetary policies in the major industrial
Chairman in 1993. Viewed from the optic of
worrying enough to lead to the Plaza and
countries complicate the environment for policy
the recent financial crisis and the subsequent
Louvre accords. Much of the analysis that lay
making elsewhere.
‘great recession’, some of WP3’s concerns in
behind these agreements was hammered out
the 1980s and 1990s may be thought
in WP3, although the negotiations themselves
I first started going to WP3 in the early
dealing with a recurrence of imbalances. The 1980s were also a period of
By the early 1990s, exchange rates had returned to a more justifiable pattern and