Chapter 5 The OECD and Global Finance: The Governance of New Issues, New Actors, and New Financial Frontiers

Abstract Chapter 5 assesses the OECD's role in global finance. Most studies of the governance of global finance have considered the OECD as irrelevant. A great deal of attention has been devoted to other international organizations, whereas the OECD has generally been treated either as a passive research body or as a relatively unremarkable part of a much larger set of mechanisms through which transnationally powerful actors reinforce their dominance. This chapter argues in contrast that the OECD plays a distinctive and important role at three frontiers: addressing emerging financial policy issues; the extension of OECD practices to non‐OECD countries; and the frontier between financial practices and non‐financial ones. It is also distinctive in its use of knowledge to constitute new practices or modify established ones and in its ability to integrate across multidimensional policy fields and jurisdictions. Accordingly, it can offset or complement a wider tendency towards differentiation and specialization in global governance.