It has been widely noted that as the world becomes more connected the movements of the Developed and the main Emerging Stock Markets of the world are getting closer over time. This co-movement of the world's developed and emerging markets reduces the benefit that could be obtained from diversification across more than one national market. The key question for international investors who are seeking higher returns and less volatility in their portfolios is whether diversifying into the smaller, less liquid Frontier Emerging Markets, simply known as Frontier Markets, would provide the needed variation in equity price movements. This book seeks to answer this question by investigating the degree of correlation in the movements of the equity prices of Frontier African Stock Markets with those of the Developed Stock Markets of the world.

The globalization of financial markets has led to an impressive rise of private commercial investment in emerging markets since 1990. This rise has been driven partly by the growth of equity investment funds - collective investment schemes where individual investors contribute to multiple investments within a single fund - dedicated to investing in companies listed on developing markets' stock exchanges. Sub-Saharan Africa has participated in this trend, with South Africa rising into the ranks of the leading destination emerging markets and a number of regional funds specifically targeting the continent. At the behest of local governments, and with some donor encouragement, Africa has also expanded the number of its domestic stock exchanges from five in the late 1980s to 15 today. Despite this modest headway, Africa's frontier markets - those outside South Africa - still receive only a tiny fraction of emerging markets investment and the widespread reaction in Africa has been of disappointment. Policymakers in both African and donor capitals have fretted about this lack of response by private investors and frequently ask: why is Africa not receiving more equity investment? In this working paper, senior fellow Todd Moss, visiting fellow Vijaya Ramachandran and Scott Standley address this question and find that African markets are not treated differently than other markets and present evidence that small market size and low levels of liquidity are a binding deterrent for foreign institutional investors. Thus, orthodox market variables rather than market failure appear to explain Africa's low absolute levels of inward equity flows. The paper then turns to new data from firm surveys to explore why African firms remain small. The implications of their findings are threefold: (a) efforts to encourage greater private investment in these markets should concentrate on domestic audiences and specialized regional funds, (b) the depth and success of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange can perhaps be better utilized to benefit other parts of the continent, and (c) any long-term strategy should concentrate on the underlying barriers to firm entry and growth.

Handbook of Frontier Markets: Evidence from Asia and International Comparative Studies provides novel insights from academic perspectives about the behavior of investors and prices in several frontier markets. It explores finance issues usually reserved for developed and emerging markets in order to gauge whether these issues are relevant and how they manifest themselves in frontier markets. Frontier markets have now become a popular investment class among institutional investors internationally, with major financial services providers establishing index-benchmarks for this market-category. The anticipation for frontier markets is optimistic uncertainty, and many people believe that, given their growth rates, these markets will be economic success stories. Irrespective of their degrees of success, The Handbook of Frontier Markets can help ensure that the increasing international investment diverted to them will aid in their greater integration within the global financial system. - Presents topics in the contexts of frontier markets and uses tests based on established methodologies from finance research - Features contributing authors who are established university academics - Emphasizes financial institutions and applications of financial risk models - Explores finance issues usually reserved for developed and emerging markets in order to gauge whether these issues are relevant and how they manifest themselves in frontier markets

FinTech is a major force shaping the structure of the financial industry in sub-Saharan Africa. New technologies are being developed and implemented in sub-Saharan Africa with the potential to change the competitive landscape in the financial industry. While it raises concerns on the emergence of vulnerabilities, FinTech challenges traditional structures and creates efficiency gains by opening up the financial services value chain. Today, FinTech is emerging as a technological enabler in the region, improving financial inclusion and serving as a catalyst for the emergence of innovations in other sectors, such as agriculture and infrastructure.

Rising densities of human settlements, migration and transport to reduce distances to market, and specialization and trade facilitated by fewer international divisions are central to economic development. The transformations along these three dimensions density, distance, and division are most noticeable in North America, Western Europe, and Japan, but countries in Asia and Eastern Europe are changing in ways similar in scope and speed. 'World Development Report 2009: Reshaping Economic Geography' concludes that these spatial transformations are essential, and should be encouraged. The conclusion is not without controversy. Slum-dwellers now number a billion, but the rush to cities continues. Globalization is believed to benefit many, but not the billion people living in lagging areas of developing nations. High poverty and mortality persist among the world's 'bottom billion', while others grow wealthier and live longer lives. Concern for these three billion often comes with the prescription that growth must be made spatially balanced. The WDR has a different message: economic growth is seldom balanced, and efforts to spread it out prematurely will jeopardize progress. The Report: documents how production becomes more concentrated spatially as economies grow. proposes economic integration as the principle for promoting successful spatial transformations. revisits the debates on urbanization, territorial development, and regional integration and shows how today's developers can reshape economic geography.

After close to two decades of strong economic activity, overall growth in sub-Saharan Africa decelerated markedly in 2015–16 as the largest economies experienced negative or flat growth. Regional growth started recovering in 2017, but the question remains of how trends in the economies stuck in low gear will spill over to the countries that have maintained robust growth. This note illuminates the discussion by identifying growth spillover channels. The focus is on trade, banking, financial, remittance, investment, fiscal, and security channels, which are the most prominent and most likely to transmit growth trends across borders. In addition to bringing together findings from a broad array of existing research, the note identifies countries that are the most likely sources of regional spillovers and those that are most likely to be impacted, and provides estimates for the size of these channels. It finds that intraregional trade and remittance flows are an important channel for growth spillovers, while banking channels are less important but will remain a risk going forward. Finally, the note documents other important spillover channels through financial markets contagion, revenue-sharing arrangements in fiscal unions, commodity-pricing policies, corporate investment, and forced migration. The main takeaway is that the level of interdependence among sub-Saharan countries is higher than is generally assumed. Consequently, there is a need for additional emphasis on regional surveillance and spillover analysis, along with traditional bilateral surveillance.