Investors have too often extrapolated from recent experience. In the 1950s, who but the most rampant optimist would have dreamt that over the next fifty years the real return on equities would be 9% per year? Yet this is what happened in the U.S. stock market. The optimists triumphed. However,...

This paper canvasses the trends in self-regulation and the role of self-regulation in securities markets in different parts of the world. The paper also describes the conditions in which self-regulation might be an effective element of securities markets regulation, particularly in emerging...