policymakers demonstrate

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have the capacity to accurately detect, assess and forecast the consequences
of the financial crisis. This profoundly impacted the way official statistics are
organized. The rest of this section describes several initiatives that were taken
in response. The bulk of these initiatives are policy-driven, but the greater
awareness for the need to have better and more comparable data also benefits
researchers through greater data harmonization and improved linking opportunities.
13.3.2 The G20 Data Gaps Initiative
After the crisis, the G20 countries became fully aware of the need to set up an
international framework to address the challenges faced by statistical offices.
They called on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Financial Stability
Board (at the time called Financial Stability Forum) ‘to explore gaps and
provide appropriate proposals for strengthening data collection’. This resulted
in the report ‘The Financial Crisis and Information Gaps’, in which the IMF
and the Financial Stability Board identified data gaps and presented a set of 20
recommendations to be implemented in the years to come. 12 The 20 recommendations
are divided into four different, albeit interconnected groups: builtup
risk in the financial sector, cross-border financial linkages, vulnerability of
domestic economies to shocks, and improving communication of official statistics.
Most of these recommendations concern financial stability indicators, but
some of them relate directly to real economic indicators. The objective is to
collect policy-relevant data that can, when needed, lead to early warnings.
In parallel, the Inter-Agency Group on Economic and Financial Statistics
(IAG) was established to coordinate statistical issues and strengthen data collection.
The IAG comprises the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the
European Central Bank (ECB), Eurostat, the IMF, the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United Nations, and the
World Bank. The IAG may be seen as a global facilitator. It coordinates international
agencies to limit the duplication of efforts at the international level
as much as possible. As the crisis had demonstrated a need to enhance communication,
the IAG also promotes data provision and dissemination, particularly
among the G20 economies. A website, www.principalglobalindicators
.org, provides access to comparable economic and financial indicators for the
G20 economies and the FSB countries.
The work undertaken by the Financial Stability Board with respect to two
of the G20 data gaps’ recommendations, namely Global Network Connections
(R8) and Systematically Important Global Financial Institutions (R9), provide
a good illustration of the challenges involved in the task. As the Lehman example
made clear, the financial system is increasingly global. It is also less bankcentric,
with other increasingly important nonbank intermediaries. However,