Financial Markets: Mission impossible?, Paul Dembinski and Alain Schoenenberger, Charles-Léopold Mayer Foundation for Human Progress, Paris and Lausanne, 1993.

 

There is no universal, unchanging answer to the question ‘Financial markets – mission impossible?’, which was asked by Professor Maurice Cosandey back in 1991. Indeed, if our enquiry is to be relevant, it must take full account of the experiences of financial markets all over the world. From this point of view, we can now divide the countries of the world into four basic groups: OECD countries, ‘emerging markets’, ‘emerging market economies’ (i.e. post-Communist countries) and the rest of the world. Accordingly, our original question can now be rephrased as follows: ‘What are the roles of financial markets, and what kinds of financial markets can fulfil these roles?’.

 

CONTENTS

Synthesis by way of introduction
1. The approach
2. The findings
3. The stakes
4. First steps towards meeting the challenge

PART I : Globalization of financial markets
1.1. Foreword
1.2. Globalization of the financial system
1.3. Innovations in financial products
1.4. Bank-oriented and market-oriented systems
1.5. The macroeconomic role of financial markets
1.6. The size of the financial sector
1.7. Stock markets and the business cycle
1.8. Discrimination against small and medium-sized enterprises
1.9. Regulation and financial markets
1.10. The role of financial markets in development and transition

PARTIE II : Financial market and productive investment
2.1. Foreword
2.2. The investment dilemma
2.3. Share prices and growth : a parting of ways ?
2.4. Stock-market concentration
2.5. The contribution of listed companies to GDP
2.6. Financial markets and productive investment
2.7. How companies are financed ?
2.8. The purpose of stock markets : managing wealth or allocating resources?
PARTIE III : The role of financial markets in development and transition
3.1. Foreword
3.2. Emerging financial markets
3.3. Local stock markets and development – a questionable contribution
3.4. Portfolio investment in emerging stock markets – a blessing or a burden?
3.5. The contribution made by OECD stock markets to direct investment
3.6. The stock exchange in transition: the experience of Warsaw