Dealing with these crises – in often inventive ways – has taken up much more energy than their prevention or any substantive reforms.
I had the privilege of being involved in some of these ‘ways out of crisis’. I lived through their dramatic intensity and was, sometimes, able to contribute to pragmatic solutions which helped to steady the ship. This was true, for example, of the Latin American crisis, negotiation of the IMF adjustment programmes and aiding the transition of the Eastern European countries.
From the collapse of Bretton Woods to that of Lehman Brothers, a first-hand account of fifty years of financial crises by a participant on the front lines of finance and currency.
The memoirs of an exceptional, influential man who worked alongside Jacques Delors, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, Raymond Barre, Paul Volcker, and many others.
Jacques de Larosière spent his entire career at the head of financial institutions: he was first Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (1978-1987) before becoming Governor of the Banque de France (1987-1993), then president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (1993-1998). He is currently Advisor to the president of BNP-Paribas.