The Deregulation Of The World Financial Markets

This book presents a comprehensive examination of the deregulation of financial markets that began in the United States in the mid-1960s and has now reached global proportions. The author examines the deregulatory steps taken in each of the major financial markets--the United States, Britain, Japan, Australia, and Hong Kong--exploring the impetus behind the deregulatory developments, their potency, and their effects on the operational, promotional, and allocational efficiency of financial markets.

Khoury also assesses the effects of deregulation on the stability of financial markets and on the movement toward political and economic integration within these markets. Throughout, Khoury focuses particular attention on the dynamics of the deregulation process and the forces that generated it in each of the markets under study.

Khoury begins by tracing the evolution of the internationalization of the financial markets and their deregulation over the last three decades. He then examines the economics of financial deregulation and the implications of regulatory changes. Four chapters are devoted to extended analysis of deregulation in the various financial centers.

Khoury compares and contrasts the similarities and differences among the five markets, examines the impact of regulatory developments in each market, and analyzes the growing interrelationships among financial markets. A separate chapter looks at the effects of deregulation on the foreign exchange, money, and stock markets, and on the performance and stability of the banking sector.

Finally, Khoury looks to the future of deregulation, describing the changes that are likely to occur in the regulatory structure and in the money and capital markets. Ideal as supplemental reading for courses in international finance and banking, this book also offers bankers and regulators new insights into the potential and actual effects of various regulatory and deregulatory measures.

Review: ?Khoury's informative book begins with an overview of the trend toward internationalization of the money and financial markets that has characterized the last several years. This trend, as the author suggests, will not affect the banking and securities industry. A second chapter, the Economics and Nature of Financial (De)Regulation, ' provides a good summary of the economic rationale for regulation of the banking and securities industries and compares US regulatory policy with policies of other countries.

Anyone with basic training in the principles of economics will find this chapter accessible. The remainder of the book covers the deregulation of financial markets in the US, Japan, and the UK. There is also a single chapter covering deregulation in Hong Kong, Australia, and Canada. Only in one of the final chapters, The Impact of U.S.

Deregulation, ' is there formal use of econometrics. Those not technically trained in the use of these models will not lose much of the impact of the book. In his final chapter on the future of deregulation, Khoury suggests, among other things, that the distinctions between domestic and international banking will disappear.

He explores the possibility of the cross-listing of securities of various countries on the stock exchanges of each country. These and similar trends, of course, could be halted in a wave of protectionism. Otherwise the barriers that have separated national financial markets will continue to tumble. An important acquisition for academic libraries that support courses in finance, financial regulation, or the economics of regulation.?-Choice