Fear of shuttered factories and lost wages pushed China s government last year to launch a massive stimulus program to protect jobs and restore growth. It worked.

Not only do more than 190 countries now belong to the UN publicly funded international institutions have proliferated, with not one multilateral institution having been shuttered since WWII. The result is an inefficient and confusing amalgam of overlapping mandates.

For example, embedding sunset clauses in the governance structures of publicly funded international institutions would ensure regular reviews of organizational performance and purpose. Institutions that have fulfilled their mandate or proved unable to respond effectively to changing demands should be shuttered, and their resources redirected to more productive endeavors.

But the tentative agreement between Cyprus and the troika (the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Central Bank) probably means that the worst has been avoided. Big losses for large depositors in Cypriot banks will now be imposed, and the country s second largest bank will be shuttered.