Institutional Change and the Design of Financial Systems

Abstract

Financial Systems, Markets and Institutional Changes includes contemporary studies on different institutional settings and how these affect firms’ ability to borrow money, as well as how the latest financial crisis has affected the relationship between firms that borrow and banks that lend. The book also addresses issues related to the globalization of the financial market. One such issue concerns the imbalances between different regions in the EMU, which raises the question of whether this is as an optimal currency union and also puts new requirements on an international lender of last resort (ILLR). Recent technology development, along with high-frequency trading, and the growth of Islamic banking, are two other examples of institutional changes that forms new actors and new markets. We will in this introductory chapter take the opportunity to discuss each contribution from another perspective, perhaps different from the original purpose of the author(s) in their specific chapter. We have observed that the chapters all have similarities in that they describe, analyse and exemplify how the financial system endogenously adjusts to institutional changes.