Any enquiry into the nature, performance, role, demerits, growth, efficiency, or other aspects of financial services such as banking and insurance activities, requires rigorous estimates of their economic output, i.e., the economic contributions made by these firms, as well as by the industries as a whole. Accordingly, this book condenses several theoretical, methodological, empirical, and philosophical issues in conceptualizing, measuring, and empirically operationalizing the economic output of the banking and insurance industries. The analytical focus is on both Global and Emerging Markets perspectives. The book synthesizes applied and conceptual evidence to locate the chosen theme's analytical patterns, consensus, and disagreements. The selected subject matter is studied within the firm-level and aggregate settings, bringing literature of varied scopes together. Contributions from various international academics, practitioners, and policymakers further enrich the narrative. The book concludes with data-driven case studies that analyze the extent to which the critical performance parameters of the banking and insurance industries in the BRIICS economies – including estimation of aggregate industry-level partial factor productivities, total factor productivity, technical efficiency, and returns to scale – vary concerning alternate measures of their output. The present work also provides a brief note on the inputs measurement dimension, following which there is a discussion on the limitations, future scope, and conclusions. This work will be valuable for researchers and policymakers undertaking performance analyses related to banking and insurance activities. It shall provide them with the examination of a plethora of analytical options and related issues on the theory and praxis of output measurement, all finely organized into one single volume.

This book discusses ideas for stakeholders to develop strategies to access and use financial products and services such as deposits, loans, and fund transfer mechanism, insurance, payment services, and intermediaries, distribution channels at economical prices in order to cater to the needs of the poor and underprivileged people. Financial inclusion ensures ease of access, availability, and usage of the financial products and services to all the sections of the society. The book will help in recognizing the role of financial inclusion as one of the main drivers in reducing income inequality and thus supporting sustainable economic growth of the countries, especially of an emerging economy. The book provides conceptual and practical ideas from the practitioners, best practices from the experts, and empirical views from the researchers on the best practices and how to mitigate the challenges and issues plaguing the development of the financial inclusion.

This edited volume of International Finance Review examines the rising challenges facing emerging financial markets and institutions. It provides significant insight and policy implications on topics including global banking, risk and contagion, stock market behaviour, financial inclusion in the major emerging economies, and more.

The global financial crisis experience shone a spotlight on the dangers of financial systems that have grown too big too fast. This note reexamines financial deepening, focusing on what emerging markets can learn from the advanced economy experience. It finds that gains for growth and stability from financial deepening remain large for most emerging markets, but there are limits on size and speed. When financial deepening outpaces the strength of the supervisory framework, it leads to excessive risk taking and instability. Encouragingly, the set of regulatory reforms that promote financial depth is essentially the same as those that contribute to greater stability. Better regulation—not necessarily more regulation—thus leads to greater possibilities both for development and stability.

Financial sector development fosters economic growth and reduces poverty by widening and broadening access to finance and allocating society's savings more efficiently. The author first discusses three pillars on which sound and efficient financial systems are built: macroeconomic stability and effective and reliable contractual and informational frameworks. He then describes three different approaches to government involvement in the financial sector: the laissez-faire view, the market-failure view and the market-enabling view. Finally, the author analyzes the sequencing of financial sector reforms and discusses the benefits and challenges that emerging markets face when opening their financial systems to international capital markets.

Emerging Markets and the Global Economy investigates analytical techniques suited to emerging market economies, which are typically prone to policy shocks. Despite the large body of emerging market finance literature, their underlying dynamics and interactions with other economies remain challenging and mysterious because standard financial models measure them imprecisely. Describing the linkages between emerging and developed markets, this collection systematically explores several crucial issues in asset valuation and risk management. Contributors present new theoretical constructions and empirical methods for handling cross-country volatility and sudden regime shifts. Usually attractive for investors because of the superior growth they can deliver, emerging markets can have a low correlation with developed markets. This collection advances your knowledge about their inherent characteristics. Foreword by Ali M. Kutan Concentrates on post-crisis roles of emerging markets in the global economy Reports on key theoretical and technical developments in emerging financial markets Forecasts future developments in linkages among developed and emerging economies

This is the first text to be written on Emerging Financial Markets. The book is partially the result of a grant given by Citibank to Columbia Business School for the purpose of designing a new course in emerging financial markets for their MBA program. The text reflects the tremendous research in recent years seeking to explain the financial crises in Latin America and Asia during the mid to late 1990's and related issues such as capital flows, currency regimes, legal and regulatory matters, corporate governance, and the functions and structure of financial systems. Emerging Financial Markets suggests and explores three key foundations that explain why emerging markets behave differently than developed markets: (1) law, (2) institutions of information and control, and (3) inflation and currency stability.