Tracing the institutionalization process of informal institutions: the case study of the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization

• Autor(a) principal: Pelisson, Debora Ramires
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da USP
• Texto Completo: https://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/101/101131/tde-24032021-105945/
• topic: Acordos regionais de financiamento; Arquitetura financeira internacional.; Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization; Chiang Mai Initiative Mutilateralization; Cooperação financeira; Desenho institucional; Financial cooperation; Institutional design; International financial architecture; Regional financing arrangements

The main objective of this thesis is to understand the institutional design of regional financing arrangements (RFAs). The specific goal is to understand the institutional design of the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization (CMIM), which deviates from the other RFAs that currently exist in the international financial system in terms of level of formality. Differently from the other RFAs, the CMIM adopts an informal institutional design characterized by the absence of a permanent secretariat and by a format of liquidity support mechanism not based on a reserve pooling fund but on a swap multilateral agreement. Following a process tracing analysis, the study contends that the CMIM\'s informal institutional design is a result of three combined conditions - systemic, domestic and regional. Systemic conditions are related to the common challenges that states should overcome in any cooperation process. As proposed by the Rational Design of Institutions literature, the manner that CMIM\'s members have coped with structure constrains such as uncertainty, sovereignty costs, bargaining costs, enforcement problems, among others explain the low level of formality of the regional arrangement. For domestic conditions, the analysis shows that the Japanese Ministry of Finance and the Chinese Central Bank have concentrated the power needed (both de jure and de facto) for building the CMIM according to their preferences and interests. Finally, the study also demonstrates how the previous experience of CMIM\'s members with economic regionalism and institution-building has influenced the CMIM\'s informal institutional design. The CMIM case study intends to make three important contributions. First, it seeks to contribute to the literature on the CMIM by proposing an inward approach to understand the CMIM\'s institutionalization process per se. Second, it proposes a model of analysis that can be applied to examine the institutional design of other RFAs in a comparative perspective. Third, it offers insights on how the study of RFAs\' institutional design may shed light on future developments of the international financial architecture.