Stijn Claessens - Böcker

Within less than two years, a currency crisis that began in Thailand had spread throughout East Asia, Russia, and Brazil, affecting developed economies as well as emerging markets around the world. The scope and virulence of this international financial contagion was completely unexpected. In an attempt to better understand these events, a group of leading economists from international institutions, academic universities, and the private sector gathered at a conference sponsored by the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and Asian Development Bank. This book presents a selection of the papers given at this conference, serving as a volume describing financial contagion. It includes survey articles and policy discussions, as well as detailed theoretical models and empirical analyses. Topics range from how to define contagion, to the relative importance of real versus financial linkages, to what policies could reduce contagion in the future. Many of the chapters perform empirical tests attempting to explain why crises spread, either by focusing on a specific transmission channel or an individual country or region.

In recent years, the delivery of financial services has changed consistent with technological advances that have occurred. On-line banking, on-line trading and brokerage services, and capital markets are available and utilized in varying degrees in the industrialized nations of the world. Beyond the availability of services on-line, E-Finance is redefining the cost and competitive structure of financial services. This convergence of technology and financial services provides opportunities for emerging markets to leapfrog in the development and delivery of financial services. This paper identifies issues arising from the spread of E-Finance including the readiness of telecommunications infrastructure, public policy and regulatory requirements, and financial sector development approaches. It hopes to stimulate dialogue on the role E-Finance can play in supporting the World Bank's overall mission.

As the global organisation of central banks, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has played a significant role in the momentous changes the international monetary and financial system has undergone over the past half century. This book offers a key contribution to understanding these changes. It explores the rise of the emerging market economies, the resulting shifts in the governance of the international financial system, and the role of central bank cooperation in this process. In this truly multidisciplinary effort, scholars from the fields of economics, history, political science and law unravel the most poignant episodes that marked this period, including European monetary unification, the paradigm shifts in economic and financial analysis, the origins and influence of macro-financial stability frameworks, the rise of soft law in international financial governance, central bank crisis management in the wake of the Great Financial Crisis, and, finally, the institutional evolution of the BIS itself.

Within less than two years, a currency crisis that began in Thailand had spread throughout East Asia, Russia, and Brazil, affecting developed economies as well as emerging markets around the world. The scope and virulence of this international financial contagion was completely unexpected. In an attempt to better understand these events, a group of leading economists from international institutions, academic universities, and the private sector gathered at a conference sponsored by the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and Asian Development Bank. This book presents a selection of the papers given at this conference. This is the most extensive collection to date of research on international financial contagion. It includes survey articles and policy discussions, as well as detailed theoretical models and empirical analyses. Topics range from how to define contagion, to the relative importance of real versus financial linkages, to what policies could reduce contagion in the future. Many of the chapters perform empirical tests attempting to explain why crises spread, either by focusing on a specific transmission channel or an individual country or region.The chapters in this book have made impressive strides toward better understanding the causes and channels of international financial contagion.

This book is a collection of papers presented in the conference held at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago in September 2010, that examines the role of macroprudential regulation in the financial industry. Shocked by the experience of the last few years, many argue that the more traditional microprudential regulatory tools are inadequate to create a safe and stable financial system. The microprudential paradigm relies on the presumption that the financial system as a whole can be made safe by ensuring individual financial institutions are made safe. This ignores interconnections and externalities, whereby the actions of one financial institution or events in financial markets can lead to spillover effects that adversely affect general market conditions, other financial institutions, and ultimately the economy as a whole. Instead, it is argued, there is a need for both microprudential approaches to regulate individual institutions and macroprudential approaches to manage the overall financial system risks.Conference participants discussed macroprudential regulation and related issues, including: What are the theoretical motivations for macroprudential regulation? How would it interact with other regulatory and macroeconomic policies, especially monetary policy? What would be the specific macroprudential tools? Who should have control over the macroprudential tools? How should a macroprudential regulator be structured? Where should it be housed? How can macroprudential policies be structured across national borders? What role, if any, can market discipline play in supporting macroprudential objectives?Concentrating on public policy issues, the conference featured keynote addresses by influential past and present public policy figures including: Paul Volcker, Chairman of the US President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board and former Chairman of the Federal Reserve System; Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, Chairman, Promontory Financial Group Europe and Former Chairman of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision; Jaime Caruana, General Manager of the Bank for International Settlements and Former Chairman of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision; and Charles Taylor, Director of the Pew Charitable Trust Financial Reform Project and Former Executive Director of the Group of Thirty.