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In the complex tapestry of our modern world, where economic landscapes constantly shift and evolve, three seemingly disparate phenomena have emerged as defining narratives of our time: cryptocurrencies, the Syrian refugee crisis, and the rise of municipal startups. These seemingly unrelated forces have converged to create a fascinating and intricate story of economic development, resilience, and innovation. In this book, we embark on a journey to unravel the intricate threads that connect these three distinct aspects of our global reality and shed light on the unique opportunities and challenges they present. Cryptocurrencies, often heralded as the future of finance, have disrupted traditional economic systems and ignited a revolution in the way we perceive and transact value. While their origins can be traced back to the early 21st century, their impact on global economies has been nothing short of revolutionary. As we explore the realm of cryptocurrencies, we will delve into their potential to democratise finance, mitigate financial inequality, and foster innovative solutions in the face of economic adversity. In stark contrast, the Syrian refugee crisis represents one of the most pressing humanitarian challenges of our time. Millions of displaced individuals have sought refuge in neighbouring countries and beyond, leading to an unprecedented strain on economies and infrastructure. Yet, amidst the adversity, stories of resilience and entrepreneurial spirit have emerged. The Syrian diaspora, driven by a relentless pursuit of stability, has contributed to local economies through innovative business ventures. We will examine these stories of hope and the transformative role of displaced communities in host nations. Amid these global narratives, the emergence of municipal startups has quietly reshaped the way cities are managed and services are delivered. These innovative ventures, driven by a desire to address pressing urban challenges, have the potential to redefine the relationship between local governments, businesses, and communities. Through case studies and real-world examples, we will explore how municipal startups are harnessing technology and community-driven solutions to improve urban living standards and foster economic growth. As we embark on this exploration of interconnected economic developments, we will uncover the underlying themes that bind these seemingly disparate threads together. Through the lens of cryptocurrencies, the lens of the Syrian refugee crisis, and the lens of municipal startups, we will gain insights into the evolving dynamics of our global economy, the resilience of human spirit in times of adversity, and the untapped potential of community-driven innovation. In doing so, we will come to understand how these forces converge to shape the economic landscape of our world today, and the opportunities they present for a more equitable and prosperous future.

Financializations of Development brings together cutting-edge perspectives on socio-political, socio-historical and institutional analyses of the evolving multiple and intertwined financialization processes of developmental institutions, programs and policies. In recent years, the development landscape has seen a radical transformation in the partaking actors, which have moved beyond just multilateral or bilateral public development banks and aid agencies. The issue of financing for sustainable development is now at the top of the agenda for multilateral development actors. Increasingly, development institutions aim to include private actors and to lever in private money to support development projects. Drawing on case studies conducted in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America, this book examines the ways in which these private finance actors are enrolled and associated with the conception and implementation of development policies. Beginning with a focus on global actors and private foundations, this book considers the ways in which development funding is raised, managed and distributed, as well as debates at the center of global forums where financialized policies and solutions for development are conceived or discussed. The book assembles empirical research on development programs and demonstrates the social consequences of the financializations of development to the people on the ground. Highlighting the plurality of processes and outcomes of modern-day relations, tools, actors and practices in financing development around the world, this book is key reading for advanced students, researchers and practitioners in all areas of finance, development and sustainability.

Greed Gone Good: A Roadmap to Creating Social and Financial Value brings the how-tos of impact finance to a broad- based audience of investors, from the individual to the institutional. Written in an engaging, jargon-free style and loaded with practical advice, it explores the pitfalls and potential of the burgeoning impact revolution—the increasingly widespread belief that business and financial leaders should weigh social value as well as financial value in all of their decisions, to create both a better business model and a better world. Cheerleaders have written a number of books advocating the magic of impact finance. Greed Gone Good hopes for the magic too, but also believes that an uncritical eye does not effectively advance the cause. We now have 10 years of impact investing history to examine, and not all of it is laudable. We could hold hands and sing Kumbaya in praise of impact finance; or we could employ constructive criticism to figure out what's gone well and what hasn't, and how we should move forward more productively. Greed Gone Good focuses on the roadmap—how to reorient and repackage finance and investing in order to deliver on this promise. In particular, it focuses on how to realize the potential of the impact revolution to become a silver bullet against future failures. Green Gone Good will have widespread appeal to investors ranging from individuals and family offices to the world's largest asset managers and investors.

Contemporary Issues in Development Finance provides comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of theoretical and policy issues in development finance from both the domestic and the external finance perspectives and emphasizes addressing the gaps in financial markets.The chapters cover topical issues such as microfinance, private sector financing, aid, FDI, remittances, sovereign wealth, trade finance, and the sectoral financing of agricultural and infrastructural projects. Readers will acquire both breadth and depth of knowledge in critical and contemporary issues in development finance from a philosophical and yet pragmatic development impact approach. The text ensures this by carefully integrating the relevant theoretical underpinnings, empirical assessments, and practical policy issues into its analysis. The work is designed to be fully accessible to practitioners with only a limited theoretical economic background, allowing them to deeply engage with the book as useful reference material. Readers may find more advanced information and technical details provided in clear, concise boxes throughout the text. Finally, each chapter is fully supported by a set of review questions and by cases and examples from developing countries, particularly those in Africa.This book is a valuable resource for both development finance researchers and students taking courses in development finance, development economics, international finance, financial development policy, and economic policy management. Practitioners will find the development impact, policy, and conceptual analysis dimensions insightful analysing and designing intervention strategies.

Multilateral development banks and other development agencies have adopted environmental and social safeguard policies setting due diligence standards for the provision of project finance. Such policies are evolving in terms of the activities covered and in their normative requirements. Recent iterations incorporate human rights requirements, recognising the imperative of adopting human rights-based approaches to development. Each institution has also established independent accountability mechanisms (IAM), variously functioning to ensure compliance with the applicable safeguards, to advise management regarding the application of the obligations involved, and to facilitate communication with affected communities and individuals with a view to resolving project-related disputes. IAMs are central to the implementation, interpretation, and ongoing elaboration of safeguard policies, and thus to the environmental and social good governance so essential for sustainable development. This edited volume presents a series of in-depth examinations by leading experts from banking institutions, academia and civil society, of key aspects of the rapidly evolving practice of IAMs, and of the implications of such practice for environmental and social governance.

Southern-Led Development Finance examines some of the innovative new south-south financial arrangements and institutions that have emerged in recent years, as countries from the Global South seek to transform their economies and to shield themselves from global economic turbulence. Even before the Covid-19 crisis, it was clear to many that the global economy needed a reset and a massive increase in public investment. In the last decade southern-owned development banks, infrastructure funds, foreign exchange reserve funds and Sovereign Wealth Funds have doubled the amount of long-term finance available to developing countries. Now, as the world considers what a post-Covid-19 future will look like, it is clear that Southern-led institutions will do much of the heavy lifting. This book brings together insights from theory and practice, incorporating the voices of bankers, policymakers and practitioners alongside international academics. It covers the most significant new initiatives stemming from Asia, tried and tested examples in Latin America and in Africa, and the contribution of advanced economies. Whilst the book highlights the potential for Southern-led initiatives to change the global financial landscape profoundly, it also shows their varied impacts and concludes that more is needed for development than just the technical availability of funds.As governments and businesses become frustrated by the traditional North-dominated mechanisms and international financial system, this book argues that southern-led development finance will play an important role in the search for more inclusive, equitable and sustainable patterns of investment, trade and growth in the post-Covid landscape. It will be of interest to practitioners, policy makers, researchers and students working on development and finance everywhere.

In today's world, we cooperate across legal and cultural systems in order to create value. However, this increases volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity as challenges for societies, politics, and business. This has made governance a scarce resource. It thus is inevitable that we understand the means of governance available to us and are able to economize on them. Trends like the increasing role of product labels and a certification industry as well as political movements towards nationalism and conservatism may be seen as reaction to disappointments from excessive cooperation. To avoid failures of cooperation, governance is important – control through e.g. contracts is limited and in governance economics trust is widely advertised without much guidance on its preconditions or limits. This book draws on the rich insight from research on trust and control, and accommodates the key results for governance considerations in an institutional economics framework. It provides a view on the limits of cooperation from the required degree of governance, which can be achieved through extrinsic motivation or building on intrinsic motivation. Trust Control Economics thus inform a more realistic expectation about the net value added from cooperation by providing a balanced view including the cost of governance. It then becomes clear how complex cooperation is about ‘governance accretion'where limited trustworthiness is substituted by control and these control instances need to be governed in turn. Trust, Control, and the Economics of Governance is a highly necessary development of institutional economics to reflect progress made in trust research and is a relevant addition for practitioners to better understand the role of trust in the governance of contemporary cooperation-structures. It will be of interest to researchers, academics, and students in the fields of economics and business management, institutional economics, and business ethics.Note that this work is the first of its kind that explicitly reflects on the societal realities, how these drive the assumption setting process, and how these assumptions influence the theory outcome.

The architecture of global economic and financial governance has undergone a deep and pervasive reform in the last ten years, radically transforming international institutions and groups, such as the International Monetary Fund, the G7, and the G20. This book investigates the new, unsettled order which is now prevailing, driven by the change in the balance of power between advanced economies and key emerging market economies. Bringing together multiple strands of analysis, traditionally kept separate, Reforming Global Economic Governance: An Unsettled Order particularly explores the role of Europe within this changing world. The book documents and examines a broad range of events, building on methods from economics and other disciplines, as well as on the insights from the author's personal involvement. This innovative approach allows the reader to ascertain the defining features of the reform: the increasing fragmentation of governance; the interconnectedness of its different elements; and the strong concern for inclusiveness. Furthermore, it presents analyses highlighting the controversial nature of the new order which underpins the current policy debate on international economic relations, including the resurgence of nationalism and trade conflicts. Through these explorations, this engaging book has direct relevance for the future prospects of international economic affairs.Offering a comprehensive view of these issues, this accessible text will appeal to scholars, insiders, and the general reader. Its detailed and thorough analyses will also be of great use to those studying economics, international political economy, and international relations.

This book provides a comprehensive overview and insight of virtually all multilateral institutions involved in lending for international socio-economic development. The analysis covers twenty-five MDBs globally by classifying them in three groups based on geographical lending outreach. Unlike similar books and articles, which treat MDBs as banks, this book offers a novel perspective by addressing the specifics of multilateral lending institutions, revealing multiple aspects of their operations, going beyond the “bank” concept towards “knowledge bank,” “change agent,” and even “benchmark setter.” The book reflects on the key role of most MDBs in inspiring and advancing sustainable economic development through transfer of knowledge and funding towards addressing multiple global challenges for the benefit of practitioners, consultants, government officials, borrowers, and researchers interested in MDBs.

This book presents a broad range of empirical research papers covering key issues in development finance. Despite having gained significant momentum in Africa and other emerging economies, textbooks and research publications on development finance are still very limited. This book shines a light on the main focal areas of the international ‘finance for development'agenda and outlines innovative approaches to enhance economic growth and development finance to contribute towards realizing global sustainable development goals. Chapters from expert contributors cover topics such as domestic resource mobilization, debt relief, microfinance, financial sustainability, tax buoyancy, Foreign Direct Investment, foreign capital flows, and labour productivity. This book serves as a valuable reference tool for researchers, students and practitioners in this field.

This book provides an in-depth overview of the most salient aspects of development finance. It critically reviews the current state of relevant literature on this topic and assesses both the challenges and the opportunities presented by the various forms of finance for development.Chapters from expert contributors examine a range of topics from the link between finance and growth and finance and misallocation, the relationship between financial illiteracy and lack of legal titles on access to finance, to the role of governments in the financial system and the role of overseas development assistance, remittances, microfinance, foreign direct investment (FDI) and stock exchanges on development.This book offers a good point of reference for postgraduate and PhD students and will appeal to researchers in this field.

This unconventional book addresses the imbalance of power between countries that give and receive funds for international financial development, with particular attention to the outcomes and impacts of this imbalance on recipient countries. It provides an in-depth analysis of the perceptions that population segments of recipient countries have of the power plays inherent in giving and receiving financial assistance, delving deep into the factors that affect these perceptions to examine how and why developed countries wield power over countries receiving financial assistance. While the text focuses primarily on African countries, it also addresses the broader power imbalance between developed countries in the global north and developing countries in the global south. It also examines perceptions of development assistance and power imbalance between the global south in general and the BRICS countries which provide assistance to the global south in particular. This book is an ideal tool for those studying the socioeconomic impacts of international financial assistance to developing countries.

The question of money, how to provide it, and how to acquire it where needed is axiomatic to development. The realities of global poverty and the inequalities between the ‘haves'and the ‘have-nots'are clear and well documented, and the gaps between world's richest and the world's poorest are ever-increasing. But, even though funding development is assumed to be key, the relationship between finance and development is contested and complex.This book explores the variety of relationships between finance and development, offering a broad and critical understanding of these connections and perspectives. It breaks finance down into its various aspects, with separate chapters on aid, debt, equity, microfinance and remittances. Throughout the text, finance is presented as a double-edged sword: while it is a vital tool towards poverty reduction, helping to fund development, more critical approaches remind us of the ways in which finance can hinder development. It contains a range of case studies throughout to illustrate finance in practice, including, UK aid to India, debt in Zambia, Apple's investment in China, microfinance in Mexico, government bond issues in Chile, and financial crisis in East Asia. The text develops and explores a number of themes throughout, such as the relationship between public and private sources of finance and debates about direct funding versus the allocation of credit through commercial financial markets. The book also explores finance and development interactions at various levels, from the global structure of finance through to local and everyday practices.Global Finance and Development offers a critical understanding of the nature of finance and development. This book encourages the reader to see financial processes as embedded within the broader structure of social relationships. Finance is defined and demonstrated to be money and credit, but also, crucially, the social relationships and institutions that enable the creation and distribution of credit and the consequences thereof. This valuable text is essential reading for all those concerned with poverty, inequality and development.

Jacqueline Best argues that the changes in International Monetary Fund, World Bank and donor policies in the 1990s, towards what some have called the'Post-Washington Consensus,'were driven by an erosion of expert authority and an increasing preoccupation with policy failure. Failures such as the Asian financial crisis and the decades of despair in sub-Saharan Africa led these institutions to develop governance strategies designed to avoid failure: fostering country ownership, developing global standards, managing risk and vulnerability and measuring results. In contrast to the structural adjustment era when policymakers were confident that they had all the answers, the author argues that we are now in an era of provisional governance, in which key actors are aware of the possibility of failure even as they seek to inoculate themselves against it. This book considers the implications of this shift, asking if it is a positive change and whether it is sustainable.

With the vague intention of winning hearts and minds in Afghanistan, the US government has mismanaged billions of development and logistics dollars, bolstered the drug trade, and dumped untold millions into Taliban hands. That is the sobering message of this scathing critique of our war effort in Afghanistan. According to this book, America has already lost the war. While conducting extensive research and fieldwork in Afghanistan's war zones, a drumbeat of off-the-record and offhand remarks pointed the author to one conclusion:'We blew it.'The sentiment was even blazoned across a US military fortification, as the author saw at Forward Operating Base Mehtar Lam in insurgency-wracked Laghman Province:'I glanced over at a concrete blast barrier while waiting for a helicopter,'Wissing says.'Someone had spray-painted in jagged letters:'The GAME. You Lost It.''The author's vivid narrative takes the reader down to ground level in frontline Afghanistan. It draws on the voices of hundreds of combat soldiers, ordinary Afghans, private contractors, aid workers, international consultants, and government officials. From these contacts it became glaringly clear, as the author details, that American taxpayer dollars have been flowing into Taliban coffers, courtesy of scandalously mismanaged US development and counterinsurgency programs, with calamitous military and social consequences. This is the first book to detail the toxic embrace of American policymakers and careerists, Afghan kleptocrats, and the opportunistic Taliban. The result? US taxpayers have been footing the bill for both sides of a disastrous Afghanistan war.

There is real promise for developing economies in the mobilization of their own domestic resources. For example, in 2010, tax revenue on the Africa continent was eight times larger than the foreign assistance received. And as aid levels from wealthy nations continue to be uncertain, countries have an impetus to finance their own development in order to deliver responsible, transparent public services—all of which require a strong tax base from the formal sector. The Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation, launched in 2011 at Busan, relies heavily on this principle of domestic resource mobilization as a means of country ownership. How we leverage the expertise of donor governments in partnership with local governments in implementing this agenda is key to its success.

The World Economic and Social Survey (WESS) is a yearly publication that provides objective analysis of pressing long-term social and economic development issues, and discusses the positive and negative impact of corresponding policies. Scholars, policymakers, development thinkers and practitioners, as well as United Nations staff members have come together to develop the main messages for this year's focus – Innovative Sources of Development Finance. This publication touches on topics such as conventional proposals of innovative international financing, existing mechanisms of innovative financing for development, and the allocation process, as well as the relation of international distribution mechanisms to development objectives.

Today's world is crowded with international laws and institutions that govern the global economy. This post-World War II accumulation of hard multilateral and soft plurilateral institutions by no means constitutes a comprehensive, coherent and effective system of global economic governance. As intensifying globalization thrusts many longstanding domestic issues onto the international stage, there is a growing need to create at the global level the more comprehensive, coherent and effective governance system that citizens have long taken for granted at home. This book offers the first comprehensive look at this critical question of international relations. It examines how, and how well, the multilateral organizations and the G8 are dealing with the central challenges facing the contemporary international community, how they have worked well and poorly together, and how they can work together more effectively to provide badly needed public goods. It is an ideal reference guide for anyone interested in institutions of global governance.

This book examines the subject of Development Finance, or more specifically how financial systems can help or hinder the process of human development. As an expert in this field, Stephen Spratt reviews the components of the domestic and international financial systems, and considers reform options objectively against the central goal of human development. The result is a combination of orthodox and more innovative approaches, which provides a thorough grounding in development finance theory and practice in the 21st century. Topics covered in the book include: The Millennium Development Goals Financial crises and international capital flows The role of the private sector Microfinance. Focusing on the roles of the World Bank and the IMF and with a host of case studies and real world examples from Asia, Africa and Latin America as well as the'transition'economies of Eastern Europe, the author examines developing countries'engagement with the international financial system and its influence on the process of human development, both positive and negative.

Although the first edition was published in 1989 before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the analysis of the causes of the periodic crisis of capitalism is as relevant today as it was 20 years ago. In this second edition, the author provides an updated analysis of the crash of international finance-capital of 2007–2008 and draws out the likely implications for the Third World, a perspective that has received little attention elsewhere. This book is a damning critique of a system that has paid trillions of dollars to bail out international banks and financial institutions, the very institutions that were responsible tor creating the crash, while the rest of humanity—especially the majority in the Third World—suffers its devastating consequences. Nabudere argues that capitalism has lost all moral and ethical claims to be a means for progress and that it is an indefensible system.

This book provides an assessment of the role of the International Monetary Fund in poor countries. In recent years, a large portion of the work of the IMF has focused on the economies of low-income countries by aiming to create conditions conducive to poverty reduction and stable economic growth. More than two fifths of the IMF's 185 members are low-income countries and many others have substantial pockets of poverty in their populations. Since economic development and the reduction of poverty are the most important economic challenges that these countries face, how can the IMF best help them? How can the imperative of macroeconomic and financial stability be reconciled with the requirements for sustained economic growth? This volume brings together the research of leading economists, political scientists, and historians to suggest ways for the IMF to address these issues effectively

Never has the World Bank's relief work been more important than in the last nine years, when crises as huge as AIDS and the emergence of terrorist sanctuaries have threatened the prosperity of billions. This journalistic masterpiece by Washington Post columnist Sebastian Mallaby charts those controversial years at the Bank under the leadership of James Wolfensohn—the unstoppable power broker whose daring efforts to enlarge the planet's wealth in an age of globalization and terror were matched only by the force of his polarizing personality. Based on unprecedented access to its subject, this captivating tour through the messy reality of global development is that rare triumph—an emblematic story through which a gifted author has channeled the spirit of the age.This edition features a new afterword by the author that analyzes the appointment of Paul Wolfowitz as Wolfensohn's successor at the World bank

'This book is an authoritative and radical manifesto for urgently needed changes in development cooperation.'A Chance for the World Bank'provides an overview of the challenges faced by the World Bank, and explores how it has organized itself to deal with its mission. It proposes that, unless radical steps are taken by the World Bank, the first decade of the century will witness a ever-widening gulf between the poor and rich countries.'

Today's international development financing system seems like a collection of disjointed entities that often work at cross purposes without being able to mobilize enough finance for developing countries in their efforts to reduce poverty and improve living standards. This book brings together the vast array of new initiatives in financing mechanisms and proposals to transform the development finance architecture. Based on four different scenarios for the next ten-year period, proposals are made for how to reach an effective system.

'E/2005/51/Rev.1 ST/ESA/298'-- T.p.

'Incredible. What a major contribution, just to pull together the diverse array of information out there about development finance into one volume. I consider this book an ′education′ for the lay reader, and a fabulous resource for the practitioner of development finance.'–Dr. Rhonda Phillips, AICP, CED, University of Florida'This is the most comprehensive and best-written economic development text in the market. This would be a good text for a graduate level course and would work well with a one-semester teaching plan... The main strength of the book is the author′s ability to summarize concepts, programs, and institutions and then draw from them issues, lessons, and challenges.'–John S. Strong, School of Business, College of William and Mary Economic Development Finance is a comprehensive and in-depth presentation of private, public, and community financial institutions, policies and methods for financing local and regional economic development projects. The treatment of policies and program models emphasizes their applications and impact, key design and management issues, and best practices. A separate section addresses critical management issues for development finance programs: program and product design, the lending and investment process, and capital management. Case studies are included throughout the book to help readers develop their skills and apply policies and tools to real practice issues. A glossary of finance terms is also included.Economic Development Finance provides a foundation for students and professionals in the technical aspects of business and real estate finance and surveys the full range of policies, program models, and financing tools used in economic development practice within the United States. Learn more economic development strategies on Karl F. Seidman′s Web site at www.kfsconsulting.com

This volume provides an up-to-date and detailed tour d'horizon of the exciting diversity of new proposals and mechanisms currently being discussed in order to raise the necessary financial resources to make the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals a reality by 2015. If the MDGs to halve global poverty and significantly improve the conditions of life of the world's poor are to be met on schedule, putting in place the requisite funding is an essential component. The economists in this volume from WIDER, UNDP, and other leading institutions have contributed their analyses as part of the Helsinki Process on Globalisation and Democracy - a high-level multi-stakeholder initiative to develop new approaches to global problem-solving, a global economic agenda and human security.Key resource flows examined include ODA, foreign direct investment, remittances by migrants, commodity export prices, and new ideas to secure sustainable debt relief, including SDRs, debt cancellation, revaluation of IMF gold reserves, debt arbitration, and other proposals. The statistically rich analyses are presented in the context of the complicated trends in global inequality, the incidence of poverty, and the impacts of globalisation. The editors conclude with a thought-provoking set of ideas about the political requirements for effective global economic governance aimed at achieving the MDGs that the world community set itself at the start of the new millennium.The empirical data in this volume and survey of key new ideas for resource mobilisation will be invaluable to all those concerned with global economic governance, including scholars, diplomats, NGO lobbyists, and students studying development economics.

Non, le sous-développement n'est pas une fatalité. Cet ouvrage démontre que la théorie économique peut résoudre les problèmes des pays sous-développés. L'auteur souligne la responsabilité des dirigeants des pays en voie de développement, celle des organisations internationales mais aussi celle des pays industrialisés dont l'analyse relève toujours d'une vision à court terme. Ils ignorent l'essentiel : le développement des pays sous-développés favoriserait l'enrichissement mutuel de l'ensemble des pays.

'Economía de América Latina'--P. [i].

Les auteurs tentent de déterminer ce que font les organisations internationales liées à la question de la dette et pourquoi elles le font (BRI, FMI, Banque mondiale, OCDE); ils précisent ensuite ce qu'est la dette internationale et comment elle est gérée. Enfin, ils distinguent clairement les dettes officielles et les dettes privées et proposent le réaménagement et la restructuration de la dette internationale.

The overall impact of financial globalization on the domestic financial sector is profound. Liberalization of capital flows has effectively made domestic financial repression obsolete. The consequences have not been uniformly favorable. Following liberalization, domestic interest rates in developing countries have moved to a premium over industrial country rates, and can surge at times of currency speculation. Heightened interest rate and exchange rate volatility pose practical risk management difficulties for financial intermediaries and reinforce the need for appropriate infrastructures and incentives for risk containment, as well as for good macropolicies. On the other hand, the cost of equity capital has been reduced by allowing foreign investor access to local equity markets and allowing local firms to list abroad. Increased international flows through the equity markets have not been the major contributor to increased international sources of volatility. In addition to opening access to foreign-sourced financial services, more and more countries have been permitting foreign-owned banks and other financial firms to operate locally. Although this can represent a threat to domestic owners of financial firms, the drawback is outweighed by improved service quality. On all three fronts--debt, equity, and services--the costs and risks as well as the benefits of increased financial globalization. knowledges.

As a result of the liberalization of the 1980s, the financial system has acquired a prominent role in developing economies. It is now conventional wisdom that `financial liberalization'is the means to stimulate economic development. Investment Finance in Economic Development challenges this assumption and offers an alternative view. The book prese