As emphasised in the beginning, the considerations presented here are very preliminary by nature. Nevertheless, some of the aspects discussed seem worth summarising. First, financial markets worldwide show a tendency of asymmetric regional "clustering" with newly emerging places challenging the...

One key focus of the on-going debate on the integration of international financial markets have been measures to lengthen the maturity of foreign debt. Short-term debt is typically considered to be volatile and thus a potential trigger of currency crises. In contrast to the vivid policy debate...