In recent decades, the foreign assets and liabilities of advanced economies have grown rapidly relative to GDP, with the increase in gross cross-holdings far exceeding changes in the size of net positions. Moreover, the portfolio equity and FDI categories have grown in importance relative to international debt stocks. This paper describes the broad trends in international financial integration for a sample of industrial countries and seeks to explain the cross-country and time-series variation in the size of international balance sheets. It also examines the behavior of the rates of return on foreign assets and liabilities, relating them to "market" returns.

The papers collected in this volume are those presented at the thirteenth Colloquium arranged by the Societe Universitaire Europeenne de Recherches Financieres (SUERF), which took place in Luxembourg in October 1986. The Society issupported byalargenumberofcentralbanksandcommer cial banks, byother financial and business institutions, by treasury officials and by academics and others interested in monetary and financial prob lems. Since its establishment in 1963 it has developed as a forum for the exchange of information, research results and ideas, valued by academics and practitioners in these fields, including central bank officials and civil servants responsible for formulating and applying monetary and financial policies, national and international. A major 'activity of SUERF is to organize and conduct Colloquia on subjects of topical interest to its mem bers. The titles, places and dates of previous Colloquia for which volumes of the collected papers were published are noted on the last page of this volume. Volumes were not produced for Colloquia held at Tarragona, Spain in October 1970 under the title 'Monetary Policy and New Develop ments inBanking'andatStrasbourg, France inJanuary 1972underthe title 'Aspects ofEuropean Monetary Union'. The previous SUERF Colloquium, at Cambridge in March 1985, had as its subject 'Shifting Frontiers in Financial Markets'

There is widespread agreement in the current social and economic debate that the nations of the world are becoming increasingly integrated. Many structural signs in society also suggest that this is so. Integration has become a catchword in the prepara tions for the internal market of the EC, and a keynote in the debate about association for the European countries which do not belong to the Community. But when we turn to the question of how this integration should be measured, there is very little con sensus. Instead there are numerous problems, not only about how to measure integra tion but even about how to define it. In this book I shall discuss the import and implications of a particular type of integration, namely financial integration, and then look at the most important problems connected with measuring it. In the empirical investigation reported below I felt the need for an integrated micro-macro approach. Further, I decided to illustrate the measurement problems by studying a small and relatively open economy where exchange controls have been imposed by the government in an attempt to reduce the flow of interest-sensitive capital out of the country, and thus to acquire autonomy for the national monetary policy. An interview study has been carried out with a view to illustrating among other things how expectations are formed among the major actors on the financial market, and this provided additional input for an analysis of the level of financial integration.

By and large, EU financial integration has been a success story. Still, the reform agenda is far from finished. What are the remaining challenges? What are the gains of closer financial market integration? This IMF book tracks the European Union's journey along the path to a single financial market and identifies the challenges and priorities that remain ahead. It pays particular attention to the most recent integration efforts in the European Union following the introduction of the euro. The study looks at the importance of financial integration, in particular for economic growth, the interplay between banks and markets, and equity market integration. It closely examines the relationship between financial integration and financial stability. This interaction presents the European Union with a challenge, but also with the opportunity to play a pioneering role in developing a regional approach to financial stability that could provide lessons for the rest of the world.

This literature review joins with recent studies in arguing that financial integration must be carefully prepared and managed to ensure that the benefits outweigh the short-run risks. But in contrast with some other studies, it adopts a more skeptical view of the benefits of capital flows other than foreign direct investment.

Many Latin American economies have experienced significant reductions in growth recently, as a result of the end of the commodity super-cycle and the rebalancing of China’s growth, and a number of global banks have been leaving the region. AlthoughLatin American countries were generally less affected by the global financial crisis (GFC) than other regions, the region continues also to suffer from the protracted sluggish growth in advanced economies. In addition, there has since 2008 been a withdrawal of global banks from the region, thus potentially worsening access to credit or reducing competition in the financial sector. More broadly, the GFC demonstrated that extreme economic volatility can originate from outside the region, rather than internally, as was the experience of the 1980s and 1990s...