Central Banker to the World?

The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System has recently released transcripts from its meetings during the 2008 crisis. In these transcripts, it is revealed that the Fed was lending dollars to foreign central banks (ECB, BoJ etc), who in turn were lending those dollars to their domestic institutions. In essence, the Fed was acting as a lender of last resort by providing dollar liquidity to these central banks. In this op-ed, Harold James argues that the Fed's actions have left the IMF marginalised  - it is no longer the international lender of last resort (click here for an article on the IMF's role as an ILLR).