The first G20 Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy was assembled in November 2008 as a direct response to the global financial crisis. Leaders of the world's twenty largest economies met in Washington, D.C. to discuss ways to blunt the effects of the crisis and to begin reforming the financial system to prevent similar crises in the future. The attendees feared that, with trade and financial sector links having grown ever stronger over previous decades and spanning all parts of the globe, a financial sector collapse in the United States could bring down the entire world economy. Most observers agree that decisive action by the U.S. Federal Reserve and Treasury, bolstered by the unified commitment of the G20 leaders, played a critical part in preventing a global economic free-fall.

Five years after the inception of the leaders-level G20 summits, the key question is whether these annual gatherings still have anything to contribute to global economic governance. The next Summit, held this November in Brisbane, will be the first meeting where combatting an ongoing crisis no longer dominates the agenda.

The absence of immediate crisis-like pressure could be an opportunity for the G20 to tackle the major structural medium and long-term issues that continue to face the world economy in a sustainable way. The Australian National University and the Brookings Institution joined forces to produce the essays in this book in the hope and the expectation that the leaders will see 2014 as an opportunity to address longer-term challenges, and to transform the G20 from a crisis committee into a steering committee for the world economy and a lasting and useful feature of global economic governance.

Contributors include: Colin Bradford (Brookings), Andrew Elek (Australian National University), Ross Garnaut (University of Melbourne), Yiping Huang (China Center for Economic Research and Peking University) Bruce Jones (Brookings Institution and Stanford University), Muneesh Kapur (International Monetary Fund), Homi Kharas (Brookings), Wonhyuk Lim (Korea Development Institute), Rakesh Mohan (International Monetary Fund) David Nellor (consultant, Indonesia), Yoshio Okubo (Japan Securities Dealers Association), Mari Pangestu (Republic of Indonesia), Changyong Rhee (International Monetary Fund), Alok Sheel (Government of India), Mahendra Siregar (Republic of Indonesia), Paola Subacchi (Chatham House, London), Carlos Vegh (Brookings, Johns Hopkins University, and National Bureau of Economic Research), Guillermo Vuletin (Brookings), and Maria Monica Wihardja (World Bank and East Asia Forum).