to stay open to contacts and interactions with countries across the world, even if we do not share their views, values and partner countries. an example includes the course participants provided by the joint vienna institute – the jvi – which is managed by the imf with financial and other support provided by the austrian ministry of finance and the oenb. the jvi offers policy classes to civil servants of member states in central, eastern and southeastern europe ( cesee ) and in central asia. should it remain open to all member states without limitations or can, and should, some limitations be imposed that make a moral point but also signal support for multilateralism? besides these down - to - earth considerations, i consider a discussion on international policy coordination eminently important at the current juncture. two weeks ago, i returned from the imf spring meetings in washington, d. c., where stress factors like fiscal legacies of the pandemic, growing geoeconomic fragmentation, military conflicts and climate change were on everybody's mind. all these things are happening at the same time and are partially reinforcing one other. this creates a situation that has been referred to as a " polycrisis. " no nation can solve a problem like climate change or 2 / 4 bis - central bankers'speeches geoeconomic fragmentation on its own. therefore, the polycrisis would warrant a coordinated policy response from all nations affected. if we coordinate our political efforts, we are likely to produce positive spillovers from one country to another. but how likely is it that we will see such a coordinated response? to coordinate economic policies among sovereign nation states, we would need a reliable international policy framework, a rules - based order if you will. but in the recent past we have witnessed a decline in the general willingness to accept the rules of a multilateral order. several nation states took unilateral decisions which served their national interest, and a more power - based system has been emerging. this reflects a certain short termism. while it may be in the national self - interest to diverge from established rules at any particular moment, doing so undermines the very existence of the multilateral order that benefits us all in the long run. this is a classic example of dynamic inconsistency which has also affected monetary policy and which was the motivation for central bank independence. in the field of international policy coordination, we are also faced with a prisoner's dilemma : there may be political incentives

robert holzmann : stress in public finances - the need for international policy coordination welcome remarks by dr robert holzmann, governor of the oesterreichische nationalbank, the austrian central bank, at the 2024 annual meeting of the standing field committee " international economics " of the verein fur socialpolitik, vienna, 3 may 2024. * * * ladies and gentlemen, esteemed colleagues, it is my pleasure to welcome you in the newly renovated kassensaal of the oesterreichische nationalbank to the discussion event on the occasion of the 2024 annual meeting of the standing field committee " international economics " of the verein fur socialpolitik. today's economic policy forum will discuss the topic of " stress in public finances : the need for international policy coordination. " since stress in public finances has a tendency to exert stress on financial stability and on interest rates, you can imagine that the topic of the panel discussion is of great interest to me as a central banker. i am very much looking forward to listening to our excellent panel of highly experienced experts. following many decades of rising globalization, including a " hyper - globalization period " between the 1990s and 2008, the 2008 global financial crisis led to a slowdown of this trend, sometimes called " slowbalization. " in recent years and fueled by the covid - 19 pandemic, the war in ukraine and growing ideological differences with respect to tackling the green transition, a trend toward de - globalization has emerged. so, based on forward - looking ideas and my personal experience – let me share a few remarks on how international policy coordination and cooperation can still work in a deglobalizing world : first, a lot of ink ( or time ) has been spent over many years on identifying the cooperation space for critical areas of economic policy - setting that promise welfare improvements of some size. a critical starting point for measuring welfare improvements is the nash equilibrium – as non - cooperative game theoretical outcome. this equilibrium assumes full information about the states of the world ( and mutual interests and differences ) and is quite likely quite some distance from the origin and state of ignorance. it thus reflects a relatively advanced welfare state to which cooperation can contribute a variable extend. hence, analytical policy events organized by international organizations primarily aimed at identifying country - specific positions may achieve such a valuable non - cooperative equilibrium. for me, a historic and still relevant example – the oecd working party no 1