World leaders gather on Saturday to address the global financial meltdown. They will discuss fiscal stimulus and monetary policy, and rightly so. But Japan’s bitter experience in the 1990s proves that fiscal and monetary policies are not enough. Just as important are microeconomic incentives such as rules for accounting, disclosure and compensation. Unless the micro incentives are right, the macro outcome will be wrong.

In my opinion, the global financial meltdown had less to do with macro­economic errors – although such errors occurred – than with distorted and in­compatible micro incentives. Here are 11 reforms that will damp the tendency of financial markets to stampede.