An influential think-tank in the United States will today demand that the International Monetary Fund be abolished unless it agrees to immediate and far-reaching reforms.
The Washington-based American Enterprise Institute (AEI) will push for a more radical package of measures than those outlined by British Prime Minister Tony Blair earlier this week.
Charles Calomiris, director of AEI's project on financial deregulation and a professor at Columbia Business School, will unveil a reform plan covering lending rules and funding.
'Abolishing the IMF may be the right policy to pursue if it turns out that the path to reform is blocked by those with vested interests in preserving the status quo,' Mr Calomiris said.
'It's possible to design a global safety net that properly allocates risk, eliminates - or at least significantly reduces - problems of moral hazard, and still provides protection against illiquidity problems,' he said.
The 54-year-old Bretton Woods institutions are under intense pressure to reform from the US Congress and Mr Blair - chairman of the Group of Seven leading industrialised nations - and US industry groups.
Critics claim the global economic contagion that has swept through Asia, Russia and Latin America highlights the shortcomings of the institutions.