As financial globalisation has proceeded since 1980, economic performance and living conditions in the developing world have been shaped more and more by international financial markets and official financing flows. These in turn are a product of the global financial system, which is largely shaped by decisions taken in the IMF. At the national level, economic and social policies are both influ...

This paper studies theoretically how the cross-country differences in the institutional quality (IQ) of the domestic credit markets shape the patterns of international capital flows when such IQ differences cause productivity differences across countries. IQ affects productivity by changing productivity-agency cost trade-offs across heterogeneous investment projects, which have opposite effects...

The East Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s has challenged the widely-held belief that international financial markets should be deregulated. The common arguments both for and against free international capital flows are analysed and contrasted. Given the existence of various distortions and market failures in the global economy, there is a case for some degree of control. The extension a...

In this paper, I put the ongoing G20 process of improving the regulation of international finance into a historically and theoretically informed perspective. To understand the driving forces behind and obstacles to international cooperation in governing finance I combine concepts from international and comparative political economy. Different variants of capitalism have reacted in distinct ways...

ON THE ROAD TO RECOVERY? INTERNATIONAL CAPITAL FLOWS AND DOMESTIC FINANCIAL REFORMS IN EAST ASIA Ramkishen S. Rajan This paper discusses trends and patterns in international capital flows in the crisis affected East Asian economies during the bust period and eventual recovery that followed (1997 to early 2000). The economies have experienced a rapid rebound in regional economic activity, i.e. t...

The wave of globalisation over the last decades finds its centre in the international financial system. The deregulation of financial markets led to an enormous amount of new innovations and an explosion of international capital flows. Deregulation of financial systems started in the developed world in the 1970s. However, with a time lag most developing countries and later the countries of the ...