Governments discuss and coordinate economic policies using a mix of formal institutions, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and International Monetary Fund (IMF), and more informal economic forums, like the Group of Seven, or G-7, and the Group of 20, or G-20. This report focuses on informal economic forums, and, specifically, the role of the G-20 in coordinating governments' responses to the current economic crisis. The members of the G-7 are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The G-20 includes the G-7 members plus Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, and the European Union (EU). Since the mid-1970s, leaders from the G-7, a small group of developed countries, have gathered annually to discuss and coordinate financial and economic policies. Large emerging-market economies such as China started to have more sway in financial markets in the 1990s, and the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997-1998 showed that emerging markets were too important to exclude from international economic discussions. The G-20 was formed in 1999 as an opportunity for finance ministers and central bank governors from both developed and emerging-market countries to discuss financial issues. The G-20 remained a less prominent forum than the G-7, as it involved meetings among finance ministers while the G-7 sessions also involved summit meetings among heads of governments or heads of state. With the onset of the current financial crisis, the G-7 leaders decided to convene the G-20 leaders for a meeting, or "summit," to discuss and coordinate policy responses to the crisis. To date, the G-20 leaders have held three summits to coordinate policy responses to the crisis: November 2008 in Washington, DC; April 2009 in London; and September 2009 in Pittsburgh. At the Pittsburgh summit, the G-20 leaders announced that the G-20 would henceforth be the premier forum for international economic coordination, supplanting the G-7's role as such. The G-20 leaders have made commitments on a variety of issue areas. Implementation of some of these commitments by the United States would require legislation. Issues that are likely to influence future policy debates and/or the legislative agenda include: financial regulatory reform, a new international framework to monitor and coordinate economic policies, voting reform at the IMF and World Bank, increased funding of multilateral development banks (MDBs), elimination of fossil fuel subsidies, concluding a new international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, concluding the WTO Doha multilateral trade negotiations, and meeting previous commitments on foreign aid. The shift from the G-7 to the G-20 as the premier forum for international economic coordination may raise issues for international economic coordination in the future. Some suggest the shift will foster cooperation, by increasing the legitimacy of the decisions reached and including countries that are big players in the global economy. Others argue that the shift will hinder efforts at cooperation, because such a large, heterogeneous group of countries will have trouble reaching agreements on key issues. Some say the G-20 meetings should be even larger and more comprehensive, to include poor and small nations in their deliberations. Others say that the existing G-20 is already sufficiently diverse and increasing the size would make it too cumbersome and less effective.