The financial crisis of 2007-09 has many losers. But it has also had winners. As the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank begin in Istanbul, we need to recognise that the so-called “Bretton Woods twins” are among these. If they did not exist, we would have to reinvent them and would almost certainly fail to do so. Once again, we have reason to be grateful to the foresight of the founding fathers of the postwar economic order.

When things go wrong, we desperately need such structures of international co-operation. Now we must consider how to make them work even better in future.