Jonathan Batten - Böcker

The Japanese capital markets were liberalized, decontrolled and increasingly opened to foreign participation in the 1970s. The fixed income market particularly expanded to finance the government fiscal deficits commencing in 1975. However, growth in the non-Government side of the market for Japan has been a more recent phenomenon and a goal of policymakers in Japan and Asia since 1997. These markets are now second only to those in the United States and dominate the issuance market in the Asian Pacific region. The latter does not surprise since Japan is second only to the United States in debt issuance globally and in recent years has had one of the worlds largest government bond and interest rate derivatives markets. However, these relationships are not static and the portfolio flows between Japanese fixed income markets, the Asia Pacific region and the rest of the world. This remains a matter of considerable importance for institutional investors, central banks and governments. The efforts of the authors who have contributed to this volume will measurably add to our understanding of the Japanese Fixed Income Market. This volume is structured into four parts: Macroeconomic Environmental Development, Credit Risk Measures and Management, Interest Rate Analysis and Market Integration sections. There are seventeen chapters in the volume with thirty-one authors, many of whom are prominent in academic and practitioner aspects of the Fixed Income markets field, contributing their insight to this volume. It is a four part volume that adds to the understanding of the Japanese Fixed Income Market, where 17 chapters and 31 authors ensure a wide range of expertise and insight, and the focus is placed on macroeconomic environmental developments, credit risk measures and management, interest rate analysis and market integration.

The Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2009 has highlighted the resilience of the financial markets and broader economies from the developing world. This outcome owes much to the bitter experience and economic strategies developed and implemented at both a national and international level following the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-1998. The objective of this volume is to investigate and assess the impact and response to the crisis from an emerging markets perspective including asset pricing, contagion, financial intermediation, market structure and regulation. Our hope is that the assembled papers will offer clear insights into the complex financial arrangements that now link emerging and developed financial markets in the current economic environment. The volume spans four dimensions: first, a series of background studies offer explanations of the causes and impacts of the crisis on emerging markets more generally; then, implications are considered. The third and final sections provide insights from regional and country-specific perspectives.