As an author, Griffith-Jones has published over 20 books and has written numerous scholarly and journalistic articles. One of her notable works is the book Time for the Visible Hand: Lessons from the 2008 Crisis, which she co-edited with José Antonio Ocampo and Joseph Stiglitz, published in 2010.
Griffith-Jones was born in Prague and moved to Chile at the age of one. She received her primary and secondary education in Chile and graduated from the University of Chile. Notably, she is the niece of Franz Kafka. She adopted her current surname after marrying British mathematician Robert Griffith-Jones. Additionally, she served as an economic advisor to Chilean president Gabriel Boric during his presidential campaign.[1]
Contributions to economic analysis and policy
Griffith-Jones has contributed to research and policy suggestions on how to make the domestic and international financial system more stable so it can better serve the needs of inclusive economic development and the real economy. One of her first articles, The Growth of Multinational Banking, the Euro-currency market and their effects on developing countries[4] in the Journal of Development Studies, published in 1980, warned of the risk of excessive international bank lending to developing economies.
Her 1986 book with Osvaldo Sunkel, Debt and Development Crises in Latin America: The End of An Illusion, showed the negative effects of the 1980s Latin American debt crisis on the region's economic development.[5] She was an early advocate of debt relief in Latin America and Sub-saharan Africa.
After several financial crises, mainly in developing countries, she started in the mid-1990s to advocate capital flow regulations in capital source countries as a way to curb excessive and volatile capital flows.[7] She believed this would reduce the risk of major reversals of capital flows and the financial crises that result from them. This is further discussed in her 1998 book Global Capital Flows, should they be regulated?[8]
In the discussion on reform of the international financial architecture she contributed to the analysis of crisis prevention, especially through financial regulation and more effective financial crisis management. For example, she advocated special drawing rights issues by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a means to provide official liquidity when private capital flows fall sharply. She also advocated expanded and less conditional IMF lending so countries do not have to unnecessarily adjust their economies, especially in the face of financial crises or other external shocks.
Writing with José Antonio Ocampo since the late 1990s[9] they expanded the concept of counter-cyclical reform of the international financial system to help stabilise capital flows and domestic private lending. The aim was to avoid frequent costly crises, facilitate macro-economic management and to achieve stable and inclusive economic growth in developing countries.
She has worked on practical policy applications of these ideas. She has advocated reform of compensatory financing at the IMF in the face of external shocks to make it larger, speedier and with less conditionality. Similarly she was an early supporter of expanding development banks - nationally, regionally and multilaterally - and their role in counter-cyclical lending. She has also advocated the issue of GDP-linked bonds as a counter-cyclical mechanism to reduce the risk of financial crises.[10] She has long supported the idea of counter-cyclical regulation. These and other practical measures are aimed at reforming the financial system so that it supports stable inclusive economic growth without costly financial crises.
Publications
Selected books
2010, Time for a Visible Hand: Lessons from the 2008 World Financial Crisis, edited with José Antonio Ocampo and Joseph Stiglitz, Oxford University Press, 2010
2003, From Capital Surges to Drought, Seeking Stability for Emerging Economies, edited with Ricardo Ffrench-Davis, Palgrave, 2003
2003, International Capital Flows in Calm and Turbulent Times, The Need for New International Architecture, edited with Ricardo Gottschalk and Jacques Cailloux, The University of Michigan Press, 2003
2001, Managing Capital Surges in Emerging Markets, edited with Manuel Montes and Anwar Nasution, Oxford University Press, 2001
1999, Private Capital Flows to Africa, with Louis Kasekende and Matthew Martin et al., FONDAD, 1999
1998, Global Capital Flows, should they be regulated? with preface by Nobel prize winner James Tobin, Macmillan and St. Martin’s Press, 1998
1995, Coping With Capital Surges: The Return of Finance to Latin America, edited with Ricardo Ffrench-Davis, Lynne Rienner, 1995
1994, Financial Sector Reform in Central and Eastern Europe, edited with Z. Drabek, Macmillan, 1994
1992, Debt, Cross-Conditionality and Banking Regulations, edited with Ennio Rodriguez, Macmillan, 1992
1986, Debt and Development Crises in Latin America: The End of An Illusion, with Osvaldo Sunkel, Oxford University Press, 1986
Selected book chapters
Griffith-Jones, Stephany; Ocampo, José Antonio (2014), "Helping control boom-bust in finance through countercyclical regulation", in Stewart, Frances; Cornia, Giovanni A. (eds.), Towards human development new approaches to macroeconomics and inequality, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, pp. 269–290, ISBN9780198706083
2010, “Agenda and Criteria for Financial regulatory Reform” with Jane D’Arista in Griffith-Jones, Ocampo and Stiglitz (eds.), Time for a Visible Hand: Lessons from the 2008 World Financial Crisis, Oxford University Press
2008, "The Pro-cyclical Impact of Basle II on Emerging Markets and its Political Economy" with Avinash Persaud, in Stiglitz and Ocampo (eds.), Capital market liberalization and Development, Oxford University Press
2005, “Should capital controls have a place in the future international monetary system?” with Ricardo Gottschalk and John Williamson, in Marc Uzan (ed), The future of the International Monetary System, Elgar
1991, "International financial markets: a case of market failure" in Christopher Colclough and James Manor (eds.), States or Markets? Neo-liberalism and the Development Policy Debate, Oxford University Press
Selected articles in journals
2003, “How to Prevent the New Basel Capital Accord Harming Developing Countries”, Presented at IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings September 2003
2003, "Basel II and Developing Countries: Diversification and Portfolio Effects" with Miguel Segoviano and Stephen Spratt, ECLAC Review
2000, "Proposals for a Better International Financial System", World Economics, vol. 2, April – June.
1992, "Conversion of official bilateral debt: opportunities and issues", Proceedings of World Bank Annual Conference on Development Economics
1991, "Creditor countries' banking and fiscal regulations: can changes encourage debt relief?", Journal of Development Studies, 27 (3): April
1985, "Ways forward from the debt crisis", Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 2 (1), Winter.
^"The growth of multinational banking, the Euro-currency market and their effects on developing countries". Journal of Development Studies. 16 (2). 1980.
^Debt and Development Crises in Latin America: The End of An Illusion, with Osvaldo Sunkel, Oxford University Press, 1986
^Coping With Capital Surges: The Return of Finance to Latin America, edited with Ricardo Ffrench-Davis, Lynne Rienner, 1995
