Policy undertakings by the seven “summit” countries: ascertaining the degree of compliance

Abstract This paper sifts through the economic-summit declarations, issued annually since 1975, to determine how credible the announced government commitments would have deserved to be, judging by the degree to which they have been fulfilled. Measuring compliance with fuzzy undertakings imposing imprecise obligations was assisted by fitting nonlinear membership functions to allow partial credit. The average scores assigned to the 203 undertakings that could be evaluated through 1989 were so low that the joint null hypothesis of “no summit ambition” and “no summit effect” could barely be rejected. However, there were notable differences by summit, country, and type of issue.

[1]  R. Cooper,et al.  The Bonn Summit of 1978: A Case Study in Coordination , 1989 .

[2]  Robert O. Keohane,et al.  After Hegemony , 2005 .

[3]  D. Henderson,et al.  Monetary Policy in Interdependent Economies: A Game-Theoretic Approach , 1991 .

[4]  M. Guitián.  Fund conditionality : evolution of principles and practices , 1981 .

[5]  G. Hughes,et al.  The Theory and Practice of International Policy Coordination: Does Coordination Pay? , 1989 .

[6]  H. Zimmermann.  Fuzzy sets, decision making, and expert systems , 1987 .

[7]  Stephen D. Krasner.  Structural causes and regime consequences: regimes as intervening variables , 1982, International Organization.

[8]  J. Williamson,et al.  Targets and Indicators: A Blueprint for the International Coordination of Economic Policy , 1987 .

[9]  F. Kratochwil,et al.  Rules, Norms, and Decisions: On the Conditions of Practical and Legal Reasoning in International Relations and Domestic Affairs. , 1990, American Journal of International Law.

[10]  M. Kahler.  Organization and Cooperation: International Institutions and Policy Coordination , 1988, Journal of Public Policy.

[11]  C. Finch.  The Imf: The Record and the Prospect , 1989 .

[12]  J. Sachs,et al.  Government Spending and Budget Deficits in the Industrial Economies , 1989 .

[13]  H. Kyburg.  Uncertainty and the Conditioning of Beliefs , 1990 .

[14]  A. Meltzer,et al.  The Credibility of Monetary Announcements , 1986 .

[15]  J. Gold.  Strengthening the Soft International Law of Exchange Arrangements , 1983 .

[16]  T. Willett.  National Macroeconomic Policy Preferences and International Coordination Issues , 1988, Journal of Public Policy.

[17]  J. Ruggie.  International regimes, transactions, and change: embedded liberalism in the postwar economic order , 1982, International Organization.

[18]  J. Stein.  Cheap Talk and the Fed: A Theory of Imprecise Policy Announcements , 1989 .

[19]  I. M. Destler,et al.  Dollar Politics: Exchange Rate Policymaking in the United States , 1989 .

[20]  U. Eco,et al.  The Limits of Interpretation , 1990 .

[21]  J. Frankel,et al.  International Macroeconomic Policy Coordination When Policymakers Do Not Agree on the True Model: Reply , 1992 .

[22]  John S. Odell.  From London to Bretton Woods; Sources of Change in Bargaining Strategies and Outcomes , 1988, Journal of Public Policy.

[23]  S. Edwards.  The International Monetary Fund and the Developing Countries: a Critical Evaluation , 1989 .

[24]  Alex Cukierman,et al.  The Politics of Ambiguity , 1987 .

[25]  Dennis C. Mueller,et al.  The Pareto Optimal Approach to Income Redistribution: A Fiscal Application , 1971 .

[26]  G. Holtham,et al.  International Policy Cooperation and Model Uncertainty , 1987 .

[27]  Paul R. Masson,et al.  International Policy Coordination in a World with Model Uncertainty , 1987, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[28]  W. Diebold,et al.  Managing the Dollar: From the Plaza to the Louvre , 1988 .

[29]  A. Meltzer,et al.  A Theory of Ambiguity, Credibility, and Inflation under Discretion and Asymmetric Information , 1986 .

[30]  J. Frankel.  Obstacles to International Macroeconomic Policy Coordination , 1987, Journal of Public Policy.

[31]  Paul R. Masson,et al.  International Coordination of Economic Policies: Scope, Methods, and Effects , 1988, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[32]  R. Putnam,et al.  Hanging Together: Cooperation and Conflict in the Seven-Power Summits , 1984 .