In this second  BIS central bankers’ speeches  9  phase, some macro-prudential decision-making would naturally reside at the international, rather than national, level. (d)  Improved international liquidity assistance  This is plainly the thorniest of the issues. Fifteen years ago, then-IMF Deputy Managing Director Stanley Fischer set out the case for the IMF becoming a quasi-international lender of last resort (Fischer (1999)). His argument was that the IMF’s financial firepower had failed to keep pace with the scale of cross-border capital flows. At the time, I remember being sceptical about the feasibility and desirability of this proposal. In the period since, there has been a further dramatic ratchet up in cross-border capital flows. This has not been matched by IMF resources. The mismatch between global financial risk and global financial resources has widened. Fifteen years, and several crises on, I think it is clear that Stan was right. Ratification by the US of the 14th general review of IMF quotas would help close the gap but, by itself, would not prevent it from yawning. Various proposals for augmenting IMF resources have been put forward (Lachman (2006) and Farhi et al (2011)), but have foundered on political rocks. Partly in response, regional facilities have sprung up as a partial substitute, growing broadly to match in scale multilateral facilities. But the financial system is a global, not regional, one – indeed, increasingly so. Regional facilities can be a complement, but are no substitute, for multilateral insurance mechanisms.
Investment and uncertainty: the value of waiting for news Speech given by Ben Broadbent, Deputy Governor Monetary Policy Imperial College Business School, London 20 May 2019  I’ve received helpful comments from colleagues at the Bank of England. I’d particularly like to thank Mette Nielsen for her help in preparing the speech. The views expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Bank of England or other members of the Financial Policy Committee or the Monetary Policy Committee. 1  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/default.aspx  Good evening! Today I want to talk about “Brexit uncertainty” and investment. This is hardly a new topic. Indeed I put the words in quotes because the phrase has become so commonplace. At least in the context of the economy one rarely hears one without the other attached to it. There are good reasons for that, of course. We know from general experience – from the empirical evidence in the UK and elsewhere (Chart 1) – that greater uncertainty tends to reduce investment spending. It’s also clear, from direct conversation and from more formal surveys, that many businesses are apprehensive about Brexit. Over half of the respondents to the Bank’s Decision Maker Panel, a survey of over 7,000 firms, now count Brexit as one of their three most important sources of risk (Chart 2).1 According to a survey by the Bank’s Agents the outcome they think will have the most negative economic impact is a no-deal exit with no agreed transition period.