THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE PRINCIPLE OF SURVEILLANCE

The article discusses the evolution of surveillance from the rules-bas ed Bretton Woods regime to the multilateral surveillance of the IMF, t he G-5 and G-7 Finance Ministers, and the G-7 summit. The creation of a mechanism for collecting and analyzing data and providing forecasts through the World Economic Outlook exercise allowed a formulation of a policy response to the economic shocks of the 1970s and 1980s. James argues that the supply of information came to play a central role in g uiding choices on economic policy; and that publicly available informa tion is critical if market panics and crises are to be avoided.