There are just 30 or so mentions of COLR on the web. One possible starting point is how we have learned to think about bespoke liquidity-support operations. After explicitly recognising that occasionally liquidity support operations can end up providing de facto risk capital if the recipient deteriorates, the late Eddie George offered some thoughts on this in 1993; 29 “central banks are not in the business of providing public subsidy to private shareholders. If we do provide support, we will try to structure it so that any losses fall first on the shareholders and any benefits come first to us. And any support we provide will be on terms that are as penal as we can make them, without precipitating the collapse we are trying to avoid ……… We look for a clean exit. The company may be required to run down or restructure its operations, under our surveillance, to the point where it can do without our support.
And on capital account liberalization, I agree with my ASEAN colleagues that it would be more useful for the Fund to concentrate on managing the process of capital account liberalization of its members instead of discussing whether to make capital account liberalization an explicit purpose or mandate of the Fund. Finally, the third point I want to make today is that I see strong merits in separating lending and surveillance. At present, crisis resolution is done as an extension of surveillance by the area departments using the approach they see fit. Separating these two functions in terms of duties, responsibilities, and decision-making would provide clear accountability within the IMF on role and responsibilities over these two issues. Moreover, since crisis prevention and crisis resolution require different sets of skills and expertise, separating the two would allow the Fund to pool resources and the special skills on a Fund-wide basis, thereby strengthening the overall institution’s capabilities to deal with crisis resolution. Finally, with the work on crisis resolution becoming more centralized, the Fund’s program design could be more uniformly structured to reflect a common set of guiding principles in relation to absolute limits of access to IMF financing, the use of standstills on debt repayment, the role of the Fund in debt restructuring, and the extent of the involvement of the private sector.