This work is an exploration of the global market dynamics, their intrinsic natures, common trends and dynamic interlinkages during the stock market crises over the last twelve years. The study isolates different phases of crisis and differentiates between any crisis that remains confined to the region and those that take up a global dimension. The latent structure of the global stock market, the inter-regional and intra-regional stock market dynamics around the crises are analyzed to get a complete picture of the structure of the global stock market. The study further probing into the inherent nature of the global stock market in generating crisis finds the global market to be chaotic thus making the system intrinsically unstable or at best to follow knife-edge stability. The findings have significant bearing at theoretical level and on policy decisions.

This paper investigates empirically the degree of international integration of industrial and emerging country equity markets. It analyzes two issues: first, the extent to which equity prices have tended to move similarly across countries and regions in the long run; and second, the strength of cross-country “contagion” effects. The paper’s findings suggest that both intra-regional and inter-regional linkages across national equity markets have strengthened in recent years. In addition, using impulse response functions, the paper shows that cross-country contagion effects of country-specific shocks dissipate in a matter of weeks while contagion effects of global shocks take several months to unwind themselves.

Economic theory, including endogenous growth, the role of institutions, and, most importantly, the New Economic Geography (NEG), have made significant progress in explaining the emergence of core-periphery patterns behind this divergence. They point to the critical role of agglomeration, which confers benefits to metropolitan cores that have the advantages of large markets, deep labor pools, links to international markets, and clusters of diverse suppliers and institutions. Regions relatively near the metropolitan core are likely to benefit from spillovers and congestion-related dispersion. Regions further outside the core however, are not only less able to take advantage of spillovers, but also more likely to be far removed from key infrastructural, institutional, and interpersonal links to regional and international markets. As a result, they face significant challenges to becoming competitive locations to host economic activity. Thus the geographical pattern of core and peripheral regions is increasingly manifest in an economic pattern of 'leading' and 'lagging' regions.

Financial sector development in sub-Saharan Africa continues to lag behind the rest of the world, despite some recent positive achievements. There is a growing consensus that financial development fosters economic growth, so why has more not been done to spur financial advancement in Africa? This book is one of the few that tackles the debate of financial development in Africa head on. It stems from the proceedings of a high-level conference organized by the IMF Institute with contributions by experts from official agencies in Africa, international financial institutions, the private sector, and academia. The book begins by presenting the reader with compelling theoretical perspectives on the determinants of financial growth, empirical analyses of the impediments to financial growth and overviews of developments in individual sectors. It discusses policy issues related to financial sector stability, regulation and supervision. The final part investigates how specific measures can create room for financial growth, even when the broader institutional framework remains weak. Case studies demonstrate how individual countries have tried to stimulate financial development, or how specific measures, such as the establishment of credit reporting systems, can generate a positive impact on financial growth. Everyone interested or involved in deepening finance in Africa will find information and inspiration in this insightfull collection of papers.

In this important book, Kathy Pain and Gilles Van Hamme bring together a prestigious group of contributors to provide a systematic assessment of the dynamic, multi-scale network restructuring and spaces of flows associated with globalization that have

In a global economy beset by concerns over a growth recession, financial volatility, and rising inflation, countries in the Western Hemisphere have been among the few bright spots in recent years. This has not come as a surprise to those following the significant progress achieved by many countries in recent years, both in macroeconomic management and on the structural and institutional front. Hence, there can be little doubt, as this book argues, that economic and financial linkages between Latin America, the United States, and other important regions of the world economy have undergone profound change.

The book uses rich data and global case studies to examine the rise of emerging markets, the impact of the global financial crisis, the revolution in the stock exchange business model, and the continued dominance of London and New York as stock market centres.