It is not clear that the commitment to open markets will withstand a repeat of such mistakes. Today, I will concentrate on two current policy challenges for our region that could prove decisive: 1)  maintaining price stability in the face of a major commodity shock, and  2)  maximizing the return to large, volatile capital flows.
In each case, there is a risk that policy-makers downplay longer-term forces when setting short-term policy. As a consequence, destabilizing global imbalances could re-emerge and undermine the globalization process itself. 1  Adjusted for the percentage of the population in the traded-goods sector.