The Warwick Commission on International Financial Reform: Beyond Architecture, Towards Building Consensus held its inaugural meeting in January at the University of Warwick. A number of Commissioners met to discuss some of the broader issues surrounding the Commission's project and suggest lines of enquiry for when the full Commission meets for the first time in Berlin in March.

This first meeting was attended by a small sub-group of the full Warwick Commission - those present included: Professor Avinash Persaud, Professor Len Seabrooke, Dr Heribert Dieter, Professor Mark Blyth, Professor Rajiv Kumar, Dr Diery Seck, Professor Mark Taylor and Eleni Tsingou.

The agenda for the day was split into four key sections: Big Questions on International Financial Reform; Comparative Political Economy of Financial Systems; Regulatory Options for Complex Financial Instruments and What is Possible, What is Realistic for International Financial Reform? These topics enabled those present to identify the key areas they felt the Commission should examine and set the parameters for investigation and discussion.

Chaired by Avinash Persaud, the meeting covered issues such as macro-imbalances, the role of housing in booms, derivatives, corporate governance, national and international regulation and the political nature and policy responses to boom and bust periods.

The full Warwick Commission will now meet in March and again in June to discuss the issues put forward with a view to reporting their findings and recommendations in the Autumn of 2009.