Are geopolitics leading to fragmentation of the international financial system?

Monday, October 20, 2025, 10:00 – 11:30 a.m. EDT 
Online: https://www.brookings.edu/events/are-geopolitics-leading-to-fragmentation-of-the-international-financial-system/  

Developments in geopolitics—sanctions, tariffs, the rise of China, the erosion of global institutions and norms, the evolution of big trading blocs—have major implications for the international financial system. This year’s Geneva Report on the World Economy, produced annually by the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and the International Center for Monetary and Banking Studies (ICMB), examines those implications, including the extent of financial linkages within and across geopolitical blocs, the role of the U.S. dollar and the euro, the potential disruptive effects of stablecoins, developments in the international payments system, and the future of the international financial architecture in a geopolitically fragmented world.

Report coauthors Anusha Chari, Nathan Converse, Arnaud Mehl, Gian Maria Milesi-Ferretti, and Isabel Vansteenkiste will summarize their findings at the Hutchins Center on Fiscal & Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution on October 20. Their presentations will be followed by a discussion from Maurice Obstfeld, C. Fred Bergsten senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and Class of 1958 professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley. Following that, the report’s authors will be interviewed by David Wessel, director of the Hutchins Center, and take questions from the audience.

Online viewers can pose questions in advance by emailing events@brookings.edu.