In their preoccupation with fiscal deficits, developed countries' policymakers continue to neglect a different, yet equally critical, shortfall: the trust deficit between advanced and emerging economies when it comes to global governance.

For decades, developed countries' shareholders in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank used loan conditionality to spur economic reforms - often including contentious fiscal-austerity measures - in the so-called Third World. Through pragmatic, sustained reform efforts, countries like Brazil, China and India turned their economies around to achieve stunning increase in their GDP growth - from an average annual rate of 3.5 percent from 1980 to 1994 to 5.5 percent since then.

But, although developing countries now account for more than half of global GDP growth, advanced countries have yet to admit them to leadership roles that reflect their growing influence in the world economy.