Emerging Financial Markets In The Global Economy

The rapid emergence of active financial markets in a number of developing and transition countries during the 1990s was a momentous phenomenon. The dramatic increase in the influence of neo-liberal thinking and laissez-faire governance in developing countries has led to serious capital market reform in scores of countries. This collection of papers addresses many of the important issues raised by these dramatic changes, including restructuring pension systems, organizing new equity markets, designing financial systems to deal with systemic risk, dealing with the overhang and bad debts, and attracting foreign direct investments. Several papers deal with informal credit markets, examining the effect of informal finance on economic development and the exponential growth in microfinance by private financial institutions in Latin America and in the USA.